A/HRC/41/54 is a mainstay of neo-liberal political economic analysis, and very often a human rights analysis of political economy, including as it relates to extractivism, adopts more broadly a colour-blind approach. Human rights analysis, especially in the business and human rights regime, is often ahistorical and colour-blind. As a result, such analysis fails to challenge the persisting structures of global racial inequality, which till this day keep formerly colonized nations and peoples subordinate to the interests of powerful nations. International human rights law and principles require a substantive approach to racial equality (discussed below in part IV) and, properly understood, they require rejection of a colour-blind approach to extractivism, because race, ethnicity, national origin and related categories continue to play a role in determining the winners and the losers in such an economy. 15. In her review of the engagement of the Human Rights Council special procedures with the equality and non-discrimination dimensions of the extractivism economy, the Special Rapporteur found that the most developed elaboration of human rights norms was in the context of the rights of indigenous peoples. Among others, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples has carried out a vital analysis of how the extractivism economy subjects indigenous peoples to gross human rights violations on a discriminatory basis (see, for example, A/HRC/18/35, paras. 30–55; A/HRC/24/41; A/HRC/33/42; and A/70/301). Other special procedures mandate holders have also conducted significant human rights analyses of the different dimensions of the extractivism economy (see, for example, A/HRC/29/25 and A/71/281). 16. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur builds upon and further develops the existing human rights analysis by highlighting the racial, ethnic and national origin discrimination and inequality experienced by, among others, those who may not easily fit within the working definition of indigenous peoples within the United Nations human rights system. In order to do so, she develops: (a) a structural racial equality analysis at a global or international level that highlights the racially subordinating effects of the unequal distribution of power among States, and between States and transnational corporations (see part III below); and (b) a more localized racial equality analysis at the national level that highlights the human rights violations concerning racial discrimination experienced by communities living directly on or close to the territories of extraction (see part IV below). 17. Too often within the United Nations human rights system, global structural inequality rooted in the histories and political economies of colonial and other forms of imperial subordination receives limited attention. This neglect is at odds with the principles of equality and non-discrimination that must be at the core of the United Nations system, if this system is to maintain a commitment to universalism. To neglect the global structures of inequality and the global systems that promote or permit the consistent exploitation of certain nations and geographic regions at the expense of others is to endorse an “international” system that exists largely for the benefit of powerful nations and their transnational corporations. 18. As is the case in all contexts, discrimination and inequality within the extractivism economy is intersectional – it involves multiple intersectional social categories and structures of domination. The idea of intersectionality seeks to capture both the structural and dynamic consequences of the interaction between two or more forms of discrimination or systems of subordination. It specifically addresses the manner in which racism, patriarchy, economic disadvantage and other discriminatory systems contribute to the creation of layers of inequality that determine the relative positions of women and men, races and other groups. Moreover, it addresses the way that specific acts and policies create obstacles that exist along the intersecting axes, contributing actively to a dynamic of disempowerment.15 19. The present report includes an analysis of the gendered nature of racial inequality and discrimination related to the extractivism economy, which is due in part to the manner in which patriarchy operates within and through such an economy. In part IV, the Special Rapporteur describes the unique risks and heightened exposure to racially discriminatory human rights violations experienced by women all over the world. 15 www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/genrac/report.htm. 5