European private law and intersectionality : three strategies

Abstract

In this paper we identify and discuss three different strategies for taking up intersectionality in the space of European private law, i.e., liberal ideal theories of social and private law justice, liberal nonideal theories of reparation, and private law abolition. While we caution for how intersectionality is taken up in the European space of private law, these strategies yield insights about how intersectionality may recast (European) private law’s role as a potential site to advance, or thwart, pursuits of justice. The three strategies imply (potentially radical) shifts in how legal scholars may understand private law justice. We suggest that (European) private law abolition might be the most promising starting point to think intersectionality’s significance for recasting dominant understandings of private law’s relation to (in)justice in the EU context.