This publication is a summary of a submission, sent to the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in March 2025 in response to a call for input by the mandate to inform the report on this topic, which was presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2025.
In this submission, SRI provided a critique of the trends and gaps observed over the recent years regarding steps taken to apply an intersectionality framework within the context of UN human rights bodies. The submission highlighted several concerns and their implications for human rights analysis: the erasure of race and class; the treatment of groups as fixed and homogeneous; the use of “intersectionality language” without addressing how intersecting systems of oppression actually operate; and the resulting fragmentation of issues and rights-holders. This submission also examined and made recommendations to remove barriers to participation in the development of UN human rights norms and standards of individuals with lived experience of racism and intersecting forms of discrimination. Finally, the submission made recommendations to reverse these trends and to contribute to more consistent racial justice and intersectional analysis throughout UN human rights work.
