Towards FIEL-ine Legalities: From Femina Economica to Intersectional Engagement with International Economic Law

Recently, several measures in international economic law emerged with the aim of promoting women’s economic empowerment (for example, Gender Chapters in international trade agreements). Though broadly welcomed by both policy-makers and scholars, their largely hortatory effects lead some to query whether this “gender turn” fully recognises – and can meaningfully address – the pre-existing structural obstacles to women’s full participation in economic life. In this article, I explore whether the “gender turn” might be leveraged for deeper critical engagement with the project of international economic law (IEL). Such engagement could expose the “interest convergence” which this gender trade measure ignores (example here); articulate anew the economic violence to women and other marginalised communities that IEL continually, structurally underpins; and ultimately invigorate a debate on the possibilities of a dedicated intersectional analysis of IEL.