Description
International organizations and international human rights protection mechanisms have long been used by human rights activists to circumvent and undermine resistance by governments to their concerns (see, for example, Keck’s and Sikkink’s Transnational Advocacy Networks, which use a ‘boomerang effect’ to induce concessions from unresponsive states; or Risse et al.’s ‘spiral model of human rights change’). But are these international norms and instruments also suitable to protect the rights of intersectional groups? Based on the analysis of state party reports and NGO shadow reports to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), as well as recommendations by the respective monitoring bodies, the paper explores whether and how European state parties, domestic activists and international agencies use these international human rights instruments to protect the rights of intersectional groups. Do international human rights mechanisms lead to a ‘multiple advantage'’due to a recent rise of awareness for intersectionalities in international law? Or are groups at the intersections of race, gender, and disability subject to a ‘double jeopardy'’due to the cumulation of different forms of discrimination and exclusion? Introducing the perspective of intersectionality to international studies, the answer to these questions will help to determine whether international human rights instruments and mechanisms are promising channels also for intersectional groups to circumvent resistances to the protection of their rights at the national level, or whether they rather should be included as targets for reform to make them more responsive to the concerns of these groups.
