Feminist critiques of international economic law

Critical and heterodox commentary on international economic law and its institutions have pointed out how both are intimately involved in shaping responses to several life-threatening crises that separately and together worsen the situation of vulnerable groups and especially detrimental for women. At the time of writing, these crises include the COVID-crisis; another global financial crisis; the climate crisis; the migrant crisis, along with new and ongoing armed conflicts and wars where sexual violence is a weapon of war. Though a classic response of lawyers to normative problems and institutional deficits is to call for “more law,” insights from feminist international legal theories caution resort to such fixes. This entry outlines two strands of feminist legal thought that engage and challenge IEL’s conceptualisation of and approach to equality, discrimination, and oppression. The first is a ‘gender equality’ lens that draws from classic liberal feminist ideas to promote gender equality more broadly. Recently, in embracing gender equality as a secondary objective of IEL’s promotion of economic development, IEL has selectively adopted some of those ideas. The second is a perspective on the feminist legal concept of ‘intersectionality’ that draws from critical race feminism’s insights. Here, it is used to critically analyse how IEL’s narrow, liberal legal paradigm institutionalises and legitimises hierarchies not only between men and women, but also between the Global North and Global South. Both strands separately exemplify a range of possibilities - from co-option by to contestation of IEL - for feminist critique of international economic law.