In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights decided the case B.S. v Spain, finding a violation of art. 3 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. By recognizing the particular vulnerability of the applicant due to her race, gender, and employment status, the European Court of Human Rights introduced for the first time in its jurisprudence an intersectional interpretation of discrimination. Combining a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews with key actors involved in the case with a legal analysis of the main documents of the process, this research examines not only the intersectional perspective adopted in the judgment, but also the conditions that allowed the adoption of this perspective. The results of the analysis show that a combination of micro, meso and macro conditions was necessary for the inclusion of an intersectional perspective in this sentence, and provide important contribution on the debate on how to incorporate intersectionality into legal praxis, both at European and national level.
