Anti-Racism as a Legal Principle

Is there anything like a principle of anti-racism in law? Anti-Racism as a Legal Principle shows that while racial discrimination law is often perceived to be anti-racist, it is only so in a liberal or cultural, but not transformative, sense. Racial discrimination law is effective only against a narrow range of interpersonal or individual racism, thus leaving intact structural racism and the drivers of racial disadvantage. This book argues that anti-racism must be recognized as a legal principle in order to effectively confront and address the full extent of structural racism.

Shreya Atrey presents a theoretical account of anti-racism as a legal principle and locates it within the legal doctrine of British, comparative (Canadian, Indian and South African), and international law. It shows how the personal, material, evidential, and remedial scope of racial discrimination law across these contexts is limited in the absence of anti-racism as a legal principle. It also shows how, occasionally, anti-racism is genuinely embraced when structural racism (how state and state-like entities racialize to instate a framework of racial disadvantage) is addressed in a broad-based and intersectional way (as opposed to individual, incremental or piecemeal way). Ultimately, Anti-Racism as a Legal Principle shows that law, especially racial discrimination law, can and indeed should be anti-racist by committing to address structural racism in a transformative sense.