Intersectionality as a tool to adjudicate human rights law; A case study on the Inter-American System of Human Rights

Intersectionality is currently used in international human rights law adjudication primarily due to the influence of feminist approaches to international law. The application of intersectionality ranges from being included in soft law to being used as a tool in adjudicative processes. However, there is no clear understanding of how intersectionality is being conceptualised in human rights, nor is there any clear understanding as to how, when, and why intersectionality is being used as a tool to adjudicate rights. Nowadays, the use of intersectionality in human rights law is being developed independently of the discussions and debates of the same theory that are taking place amongst feminist scholars. Using the works of Kimberlé Crenshaw and other key contemporary intersectional feminist scholars, this thesis critically analyses the concept of intersectionality as used both in feminist theory and in international human rights law as a means through which to better understand the use of the concept in international human rights law. The concept of intersectionality currently applied in human rights law is reworked to provide a clearer understanding of what this theory can and should entail when applied at law. Seeking to understand the implications of the concept as applied, the present work proposes an operationalisation process of intersectionality to be used in adjudicative processes. With a special focus on the Inter-American System of Human Rights and drawing on two key case studies, the research demonstrates how human rights adjudicative processes can benefit from using intersectionality as a tool to assess the different qualitative experience of harm of a victim oppressed by different systems simultaneously. This thesis contributes to knowledge through its analysis of intersectionality as understood in both human rights law and within applied feminist theory and provides a model of how intersectionality can be better understood and used to better deliver justice.