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Bernardo Carvalho de Mello

Bernardo's thesis focuses on creating a taxonomy of discrimination based on cases from the European and Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Abstract

Bernardo's research focuses on develops a novel taxonomy of discrimination, grounded in violence theory and intersectional analysis, to address the failure of international human rights law to protect individuals experiencing overlapping forms of disadvantage. It reconceptualises discrimination as violence, drawing on Johan Galtung’s framework of direct, structural, and cultural violence to reveal the continuities between hate crimes, institutional exclusion, and systemic inequality.
The taxonomy distinguishes between additive, compound, and intersectional discrimination, and introduces institutional, structural, historical, and relational forms. This provides conceptual clarity for recognising harms often rendered invisible by single-axis frameworks. Methodologically, the research combines doctrinal and comparative jurisprudential analysis with conceptual engineering, drawing from sociology, psychology, and philosophy.

Case studies from the European Court of Human Rights (Hämäläinen v Finland; Y.T. v Bulgaria) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Sarayaku v Ecuador; Lhaka Honhat v Argentina) demonstrate how narrow legal reasoning overlooks intersectional and structural harms. The taxonomy offers an alternative lens for more inclusive and just adjudication.

The thesis contributes by: (1) theorising discrimination as violence; (2) operationalising intersectionality through a structured taxonomy; and (3) showing its transformative potential for legal reasoning, requiring judicial education, legislative reform, and institutional change to achieve substantive equality.

Supervisors

Professor Rhona Smith

Professor Sue Farran

Bernardo Carvalho de Mello

Publications and Presentations

  • Global South Narratives of Rebellion in International Human Rights Law. Pons Aelius, 17 (Spring Edition: May 2025).
  • The jurisprudence of flourishing: Envisioning a postsovereignty legal order. Journal of Imaginary Research, [online] Volume Ten. (2025)
  • A Journey from Roe v. Wade to Beatriz v. El Salvador: Chronicles of Reproductive Justice in the Americas. ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research Working Paper series (2023/24, Volume 1).

Blogs

  • Trump’s Citizenship Revocation Initiative: Resurrecting Cold War Mechanisms in Contemporary Context. Refugee Law Initiative. School of Advanced Study University of London.
  • Beatriz v El Salvador: Denial of Abortion and the Failure to Protect Women’s Reproductive Rights, by Bernardo Carvalho de Mello. Human Rights and Democracy Forum.
  • The Council of Europe’s Gambit: Redefining International Criminal Justice Through Ukraine’s Special Tribunal, Cambridge International Law Journal.
  • Intersectionality and the Failures of the European Court of Human Rights: A Critical Analysis of Hämäläinen v. Finland, Intersectional Rewrites.
  • Law’s Labyrinth: A Taxonomy of Discrimination as the ball of thread to navigate the Maze, Global South Network.
  • The One That Got Away: The Failed 2022 Proposed Constitution of Chile, North East Law Review.
  • Reproductive Justice after Roe v Wade: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Beatriz v. El Salvador, North East Law Review.

Conferences

  • Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Conference, University of Liverpool - Engineering Intersectional Justice: Taxonomic Cascades in Discrimination Law, 2025
  • Methods in Law Workshop, Newcastle Law School - Methodological Uses of Taxonomies: From Case Coding to Conceptual Engineering, 2025
  • Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) Annual Conference, University of Bristol - Land, Law, and Indigenous Lifeways: The Inter-American Court and the Coloniality of Property, 2025
  • Tilburg University - Law and Humanities Conference - The Jurisprudence of Flourishing: Envisioning a Post-Sovereignty Legal Order, 2025
  • Legal Methodology Conference, Linnaeus University, Kalmar - Conceptual Engineering as Decolonial Methodology, 2025
  • "Law is, but Let Me Explain It Once More" Symposium, Newcastle Law School - Conceptual Engineering as Decolonial Method, 2025
  • "Reactionary Politics and the Future of Human Rights" Summer School, University of Bath - Global South Narratives of Rebellion in Human Rights Law, 2025
  • Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Conference, University of Portsmouth - Intersectionality, Courts, and Taxonomic Cascades, 2024
  • Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) Annual Conference, University of Amsterdam - Reclaiming Territory: Indigenous Cosmologies and the Colonial Afterlife of Property in Inter-American Jurisprudence, 2024
  • Northern Bridge Consortium Summer Conference, Newcastle University - Taxonomies as Analytical Devices for Complex Harms, 2024
  • Postgraduate Research Conference, University of Glasgow, School of Law - Taxonomies as Tools: Mapping Complex Harms in Socio-Legal Research, 2024
  • York St John University - Centre for Global and Comparative Constitutional Law Seminar Series - Decolonising Discrimination via Conceptual Engineering, 2023
  • British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) PGR Workshop 2023 – The Beatriz Case and What Can the IACtHR Teach Us.
  • Postgraduate Research Annual Conference, School of Law, University of Leeds (19 May 2023) – What really is Intersectionality in the 2020s?

Conference Organisation 

  • CLACS (Centre for Latin American and Caribeen Studies) Newcastle University Conference - "Unusual Suspects: Decoloniality in Practice", 2024

Qualifications

  • Introduction to learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE) certification (Newcastle University)
  • Master’s degree in Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica Rio de Janeiro -PUC-Rio (Brazil)
  • Bachelor’s degree in History, Universidade Estácio de Sá (Brazil)
  • LLB (with honours), Universidade Estácio de Sá (Brazil)

Affiliations

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