Re-envisioning Discrimination Law

Shreya Atrey, chair of Oxford Pro Bono Publico, presented her paper “Re-envisioning Discrimination Law: Making Discrimination Law Respond to Intersectionality” on 6 May 2014 at the international conference – “Global Challenges and New Perspectives on Equality Law”. This was the third annual conference of the Berkeley Comparative Discrimination Law Group being held at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. The Group meets every year to consider contemporary work of scholars interested in the study of 
comparative discrimination law. This year, the Global Challenges conference also brought together a range of actors – judges, lawyers, NGOs, plaintiffs and equality bodies to consider major challenges and developments in discrimination law.

Shreya used comparative case law to demonstrate the increasing and continuing obstacles in addressing intersectional discrimination through discrimination law. Her article delineates the aspects of discrimination law which have failed to respond to intersectionality. It further aims to recalibrate the central aspects of discrimination law theory and practice like grounds, comparators and proof for allowing possible intersectional claims to succeed in discrimination law.