Beyond gender and sexuality binaries: queering international law in disasters

This chapter aims to build on the sociological literature on disasters by analysing how international law might affect different sexed and gendered groups differently. First, it sets out key insights from the literature on disasters and gender, critical masculinities, and the emerging scholarship on queering disasters. Second, it identifies the limited international law on disasters that might apply to sexed and gendered groups. Third, it analyses how international law’s reliance on concepts from disaster studies such as vulnerability and resilience might affect different groups. The impact of international law might be positive, by imposing heightened duties on states in respect of particular groups, or negative, by reinforcing stereotypes that disempower them. It concludes by acknowledging that disasters represent a crisis; at the same time, they provide an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past and to fashion new, more inclusive international law.