Book Launch: Intersectionality and Human Rights Law
We are delighted to welcome you for the launch of the book ‘Intersectionality and Human Rights Law’ edited by Shreya Atrey and Peter Dunne. This collection of essays analyses how diversity in human identity and disadvantage affects the articulation, realisation, violation and enforcement of human rights. The question arises from the realisation that people who are severally and severely disadvantaged because of their race, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, class etc, often find themselves at the margins of human rights; their condition seldom improved and sometimes even worsened by the rights discourse. How does one make sense of this relationship between the complexity of people’s disadvantage and violation of their human rights? Does the human rights discourse, based on its universal and common values, have tools, methods or theories to capture and respond to the difference in people’s lived experience of rights? Can intersectionality help in that quest? This book seeks to inaugurate this line of inquiry.
Editors of the Book
Dr Shreya Atrey is an Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law at the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law, based at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. She is an Editor for the Human Rights Law Review and an Official Fellow of Kellogg College. Her research is on discrimination law, feminist theory, poverty and disability law. Her monograph, Intersectional Discrimination (OUP 2019), which won the runners-up Peter Birks Book Prize in 2020, presents an account of intersectionality theory in comparative discrimination law. Shreya is currently working on project on ‘Equality Law in Times in Crisis’ funded by the British Academy. Previously, Shreya was based at the University of Bristol Law School (2017-19). She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence in 2016-17 and a Hauser Postdoctoral Global Fellow at the NYU School of Law, New York in 2015-16.
Dr Peter Dunne is a Senior Lecturer at University of Bristol Law School and an Associate Member of Garden Court Chambers, London. Peter’s research focuses on the intersections of law, gender identity, sexual orientation and sex characteristics. From 2017-2018, Peter undertook EU-funded research on national trans and intersex non-discrimination laws in Europe. Peter regularly works with the UK government, European Union and civil society. His monograph ‘Rethinking Legal Gender Recognition: A Human Rights Analysis’ applies human rights principles to the affirmation of trans and non-binary identities.
Partners:
Hourly Schedule
Schedule
- 5pm - 5:05pm
- Welcome
- An introduction from the chair
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Speakers:
Prof Kate O'Regan
- 5:05pm - 5:10pm
- Intersectionality from Equality to Human Rights
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Speakers:
Dr Shreya Atrey
- 5:10pm - 5:15pm
- Harnessing the Full Potential of Intersectionality Theory in International Human Rights Law : Lessons from Disabled Children’s Right to Education
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Speakers:
Dr Gauthier De Beco
- 5:15pm - 5:20pm
- The Potential and Pitfalls of Intersectionality in the Context of Social Rights Adjudication
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Speakers:
Prof Colm O’Cinneide
- 5:20pm - 5:25pm
- The Right to Education and Substantive Equality : An Intersectional Reading
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Speakers:
Prof Sandra Fredman
- 5:25pm - 5:30pm
- Class, Intersectionality, the Right to Housing and the Avoidable Tragedy of Grenfell Tower
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Speakers:
Prof Geraldine Van Bueren
- 5:30pm - 5:35pm
- The Distance Between Us : Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of Rural Women and Girls
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Speakers:
Dr Meghan Campbell
- 5:35pm - 6:25
- Open discussion time
- 6:25pm - 6:30pm
- Closing comments
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Speakers:
Prof Kate O'Regan
Organizer
Kate O'Regan
Website
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/kate-oreganProf Kate O'Regan is the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009).
Other Organizers
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Oxford Human Rights Hub
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Email
oxfordhumanrightshub@law.ox.ac.uk -
The Oxford Human Rights Hub (OxHRH) aims to bring together academics, practitioners, and policy-makers from across the globe to advance the understanding and protection of human rights and equality. Through the vigorous exchange of ideas and resources, we strive to facilitate a better understanding of human rights principles, to develop new approaches to policy, and to influence the development of human rights law and practice.
Speakers
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Dr Gauthier De BecoReader in Law
Dr Gauthier de Beco (J.D., University of Leuven; LL.M. University of Nottingham; Ph.D. in Law, University of Louvain) is Reader in Law at the University of Huddersfield, and previously taught at the KU Leuven, University College London and the University of Leeds. He has also worked as an expert to several international organisations and NGOs, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the European Commission. Gauthier expertise lies in the topic of human rights and disability with a special focus on inclusive education. He has widely published in the field of international human rights law, including two monographs and many articles in peer reviewed journals, and is on the editorial board of the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme. He has just finalised a new monograph on Disability in International Human Rights Law with Oxford University Press. He has been involved in a number of research projects related to disability and frequently provides advice to civil society organisations.
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Dr Meghan CampbellDeputy-Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub
Meghan Campbell is the Deputy-Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. She is also a Law Lecturer at the University of Birmingham. She was previously the Weston Junior Research Fellow, New College, Oxford University. Her research explores how the international human rights system can best respond to gender inequality and poverty.
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Dr Shreya Atrey
Dr Shreya Atrey is an Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law at the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law, based at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. She is an Editor for the Human Rights Law Review and an Official Fellow of Kellogg College. Her research is on discrimination law, feminist theory, poverty and disability law. Her monograph, Intersectional Discrimination (OUP 2019), which won the runners-up Peter Birks Book Prize in 2020, presents an account of intersectionality theory in comparative discrimination law. Shreya is currently working on project on ‘Equality Law in Times in Crisis’ funded by the British Academy. Previously, Shreya was based at the University of Bristol Law School (2017-19). She was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence in 2016-17 and a Hauser Postdoctoral Global Fellow at the NYU School of Law, New York in 2015-16.
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Prof Colm O’CinneideProfessor of Law
Prof Colm O’Cinneide is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London (UCL). A graduate of University College Cork, he has published extensively in the field of comparative constitutional, human rights and anti-discrimination law. He has also acted as specialist legal adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Women & Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament, and advised a range of international organisations including the UN, ILO and the European Commission. He also was from 2006-16 a member of the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe (serving as Vice-President of the Committee from 2010-4), and since 2008 has been a member of the academic advisory board of Blackstone Chambers in London.
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Prof Geraldine Van BuerenProfessor of Law
Prof Emerita Geraldine Van Bueren QC is an Hon Senior Fellow at BIICL and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford. She is a barrister and member of Doughty Street Chambers and was appointed an honorary Queen’s Counsel in recognition of her scholastic contributions to national and international law. At the time of her appointment there were fewer than ten women honorary silks. Professor Van Bueren is also a Bencher in the Middle Temple. Professor Geraldine Van Bueren QC held the first Chair of International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary University of London, which awarded her the title of Professor Emerita. She has served as a Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission with lead responsibility for human rights and on the Attorney-General’s International Pro Bono Committee.
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Prof Sandra FredmanProfessor of Law
Sandra Fredman is a Professor of the Laws of the British Commonwealth and the USA at Oxford University, professorial fellow at Oxford’s Pembroke College, Founder and Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. She has published widely on human rights, labour law and equality law. Her books include Women and the Law, Discrimination Law, Human Rights Transformed and Comparative Human Rights. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005 and became a QC (honoris causa) in 2012.
