Conceptual Background: Disability in the Field of International Human Rights Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Gauthier de Beco
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Model ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Social Model Of Disability ◽  
Models Of Disability ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
International Human

This chapter starts by outlining the existing models of disability and by relating these models to the Convention. The aim is not to advance debates about the models themselves but to examine the extent to which these models have influenced the CRPD’s own understanding of disability. The focus lies especiallyon the social model of disability, which has transformed the view of disability around the world. This is followed by an investigation of the way in which this understanding of disability bears upon the entire field of international human rights law. The chapter further examines the mainstreaming of disability and its consideration by the treaty bodies as well as its consequences for the field as a whole. It finally looks beyond international human rights law by evaluating how disability is addressed by UN agencies.

Disability in International Human Rights Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gauthier de Beco
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Model ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Legal Subject ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Human ◽  
International Instruments

This book examines what international human rights law has gained from the new elements in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons (CRPD). It explores how the CRPD is intricately bound up with other international instruments by studying the relationship between the Convention rights and those protected by other human rights treaties as well as the overall objectives of the UN. Using a social model lens on disability, the book shows how the Convention sheds new light on the very notion of human rights. In order to so, the book provides a theoretical framework which explicitly integrates disability into international human rights law. It explains how the CRPD challenges the legal subject by drawing attention to distinct forms of embodiment, before introducing the idea of the ‘dis-abled subject’ stemming from a recognition that all individuals encounter disability-related issues in the course of their lives. The book also examines how to apply this theoretical framework to a number of rights and highlights the consequences for the implementation of human rights treaties as a whole. It not only builds upon available literature straddling different fields, which include disability studies and legal and political theory, but also draws upon the recommendations of treaty bodies and reports of UN agencies as well as disabled people’s organisations. The book provides an agenda-setting analysis for all human rights experts by inviting them to appreciate the benefits of placing disabled people at the heart of international human rights law.

Universal Rights versus Sharia? Reflections on the Moral and Legal Dimensions of Human Rights Law and Sharia

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-161
Author(s):  
Elena Namli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
International Human ◽  
Effective Development

Abstract This article develops a critique of the monopoly of liberal ideology in the field of human rights by considering how law, morality and politics are related to each other. The author argues that the constructive potential of international human rights law does not lie in its being understood and practiced as a positive law. On the contrary, to focus on human rights law as positive law is to conceal the political nature of human rights and to prevent effective development of its moral and political potential. Further, the author considers the case of Sharia law and argues that Sharia, for it to be implemented concretely in the social, political, and legal spheres, must be understood as a moral and religious ‘way’. These interpretations of human rights law and Sharia are used as the basis for a critique of the idea that human rights law and Sharia contradict each other.

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