Setting the context: The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Author(s):  
Suzanne Cahill

Since the UN Convention is being used as a compass for analysis and is the common thread linking all chapters in this book, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a broad overview of the objectives, principles and obligations contained in the Convention directly relevant to the lives of people living with dementia and their family members and to explain how the Convention works. The chapter also draws on Flynn’s typology for classifying the core themes contained in the UN Convention namely equality, participation, autonomy and solidarity, a typology which will be returned to in chapter eight. It identifies those Articles (a total of 12) which will be critically reviewed in later chapters, it explains the PANEL principles and shows that as a human rights instrument underpinned by the social model of disability, the UN Convention provides a solid basis for the reframing of dementia as a disability. The chapter concludes by discussing a number of recent events which have taken place across the world which reflect a slowly evolving rights based movement in dementia policy and practice.

Author(s):  
Eduardo Avalos

En el presente artículo se realiza un análisis sobre la evolución en los diversos contextos históricos y/o sociales de las personas con discapacidad. Para luego adentrarse en la normativa que tiene jerarquía constitucional en Argentina como la Convención sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad,  igualmente se analizan casos jurisprudenciales de Comisión Interamericana como la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos han intervenido en casos originados por la violación de derechos de las personas con discapacidad, y la justicia federal. Finalmente, se concluye con una relexión personal sobre la discapacidad como cuestión social, diferenciando el rol normativo, y judicial en Argentina. Abstract In this article an analysis is made of the evolution in the various historical and / or social contexts of people with disabilities. To later delve into the regulations that have constitutional hierarchy in Argentina such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, jurisprudential cases of the Inter-American Commission are also analyzed, such as the Inter American Court of Human Rights that have intervened in cases originating from the violation of rights people with disabilities, and federal justice. Finally, it concludes with a personal relection on disability as a social issue, diferentiating the normative and judicial role in Argentina.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veljko Vlašković ◽  

It is no coincidence that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first international human rights treaty in the 21st century. The Convention seeks to amend the social and legal status of persons with disabilities, including children, in a revolutionary way. The main goal is to remove social barriers by adopting a social model of disability in recognizing and exercising the human rights of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with other persons. Therefore, it is understandable that the rules of earlier international human rights treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the European Convention on Human Rights, are beginning to be directly adjusted to the this Convention. From the aspect of recognition and exercising of the rights of children with disabilities, the issue of accessibility to health care services is especially important. It insists on the application of the principles of reasonable accommodation, accessibility and non-discrimination so that children with disabilities have access to health care facilities on an equal basis with other children. This implies significant involvement of the state, local community and family in order to remove social and infrastructural barriers. Furthermore, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities calls for an absolute ban on the forced detention and placement of children in health care facilities, while there is a very negative attitude towards the care of children with disabilities in social protection institutions. In this regard, an amendment to the domestic Law on the Protection of Persons with Mental Disabilities is required. According to the social model of disability, the family environment with the appropriate and effective support of the local community is a necessary environment for the realization of the rights of children with disabilities. When it comes to the consent of a child with a disability to a medical treatment, it is necessary to determine the child's capability to form views, as in the case of other children. In that sense, the mentioned child should be provided with appropriate assistance and support to express his / her views. This support consists primarily in the way in which the child is informed about the proposed medical treatment.


Medicne pravo ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 86-94
Author(s):  
R. B. Hobor

In spite of all the short-comings, the level of protection of rights and capabilities of people with disabilities has become a good indicator of nation’s development, and such a trend is nothing but hopeful. At the same time, one can hardly imagine that this high attitude would be attainable without the influence of left liberal ideologies, that among omnibus achievements granted the shift from medical to social disabilities model.This situation cannot stand but to resemble in a certain state of rights and capabilities exercise, and even the availability of access to the key resources is impossible to bring to the point of marginalization of the mental and physical health problems. As the analyzed material shows, left liberal ideologists,being responsible for shaping the current International Law on Persons with Disabilities, finally succeeded in promoting their principle ideas in the nation case-law. The right to water, lay down on the ship’s practice, as you will look lower, you can use the clever illustration of that relief flow, as the national judiciary can fix the development of the rights and capabilities of individuals from the same basis.The article further develops the idea, that national courts sometimes tend to use realistic approach (as invented by R. Pound, J. Llewellyn, O.W. Holmes) for the sake of implementing the social model of disability. It has been concluded that legal realism is a transmitter for left liberal values in the modern western societies.


Author(s):  
Penelope Weller

Contemporary mental health laws are embedded in basic human rights principle, and their ongoing evolution is influenced by contemporary human rights discourse, international declarations and conventions, and the authoritative jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR). The<em> Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities</em> (CRPD) is the most recent expression of international human rights applicable to people with disability including people with mental illness.3 It provides a fresh benchmark against which to assess the human rights compatibility of domestic mental health laws.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Etieyibo ◽  
Odirin Omiegbe

Background: There is not a lot in the literature on disability in Nigeria concerning the role that religion, culture and beliefs play in sustaining discriminatory practices against persons with disabilities.Objectives: Many of these practices are exclusionary in nature and unfair. They are either embedded in or sustained by religion, culture and beliefs about disability and persons with disabilities.Methods: Drawing on various resources and research on disability, this paper looks at these practices in respect of these sustaining factors. Some of the discriminatory practices that constitute the main focus of the paper are the trafficking and killing of people with mental illness, oculocutaneous albinism and angular kyphosis, raping of women with mental illness and the employment of children with disabilities for alms-begging.Results: The examination of these practices lends some significant weight and substance to the social model of disability, which construes disability in the context of oppression and the failure of social environments and structures to adjust to the needs and aspirations of people with disabilities.Conclusion: Given the unfairness and wrongness of these practices they ought to be deplored. Moreover, the Nigerian government needs to push through legislation that targets cultural and religious practices which are discriminatory against persons with disabilities as well as undertake effective and appropriate measures aimed at protecting and advancing the interests of persons with disabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 2601-2627
Author(s):  
Pedro Pulzatto Peruzzo ◽  
Enrique Pace Lima Flores

Abstract The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was the first treaty to be incorporated as a Constitutional law, according to the determination of the Brazilian Constitution for human rights treaties. In addition, the Optional Protocol was also promulgated, recognizing the competence of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to supervise the application of the treaty in Brazil. This study aims to analyze the impact of the Committee and Convention in Brazilian courts, specifically in the courts that have jurisdiction to rule on cases based on treaties, that is, the Federal Justice. An extensive survey of judicial decisions was carried out in order to verify whether the protections of the treaty are applied. This research focus on the efforts to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities on the Brazilian legal system, based on the commitment to international cooperation to guarantee and promote the rights and principles announced in the CRPD, particularly regarding the social model of disability, which is the main protective concept used in the treaty.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Sandland

This article considers the neglected topic of the relationship between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with regard to the participation rights of disabled children. It analyses key articles in both conventions and considers relevant general comments from both convention committees (the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), and their interpretation by academic contributors. The article argues that much work on this topic fails to develop an adequate understanding of power relations, and that the ‘social model of disability’ which underpins the disabilities convention, when applied to ‘childhood’ (as opposed to ‘children’) suggests that the implications of that convention for the participation rights of all children, not only disabled children, are profound. This is because the disabilities convention rejects the relevance of tests of capacity and ‘best interests’ for disabled adults, for reasons which are equally germane to disabled children, and children in general. The article concludes with discussion of the difficulties in implementing the insights derived from the analysis of the disabilities convention in substantive law in the absence of a right to freedom from age discrimination for children, and suggests other, less far-reaching, reforms that could be made this notwithstanding.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 636-654
Author(s):  
Gill Hughes

Working towards the ‘good society’ is an important aspiration to hold, but equally its subjectivity complicates the realisation for all – each person’s view of what ‘good’ means in relation to society differs. The notion is also open to statutory appropriation and mainstreaming using rhetoric to suggest its centrality to governmental thinking, but the reality reveals policy and practice, which undermines the accomplishment of social justice and thus a good society. This paper seeks to explore this complexity through dissecting the processes of representation of the ‘good society’ in theory and in practice. The paper will argue that the ‘good society’ might be termed a doxic construct. Bourdieu used ‘doxa’ to explain how arbitrariness shapes people’s acceptance of their place in the world, the covert process is ‘internalised’, seemingly objectively, into the ‘social structures and mental structures’, producing a universal and accepted knowledge of something (Bourdieu, 1977 ). The possibility of difference is undermined; thus, the varied needs and contexts of people’s lived realities are consumed within prevailing normative narratives. Foucault (cited in Simon, 1971 : 198) referred to a ‘system of limits’ and Bourdieu (1977: 164) ‘ sense of limits’, both authors will assist in seeking to uncover how such invisible practices limit and constrain the imagining of possibilities beyond the taken-for-granted. The paper argues that community development can be a catalyst to challenge this invisibility by utilising Freire’s ( 1970 ) conscientisation, enabling people to recognise structural oppression to challenge the status quo. This paper will draw on examples offered within a northern city to build on Knight’s, 2015 research, which posed the question ‘[w]hat kind of society do we want?’, identifying, when asked, a hunger for change. The paper explores whether there is a desire to overturn the predominant individualism of the neoliberal era to reignite the notion of the common good.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-35
Author(s):  
Silvia Favalli ◽  
Delia Ferri

In recent years the European Union (eu) has sought to develop a far-reaching policy regarding persons with disabilities. However, to date, eu non-discrimination legislation does not provide any clear legal definition of what constitutes a disability. The Court of Justice of the European Union (cjeu) has attempted to fill this gap and, in several decisions, has elaborated on the concept of disability and its meaning under eu law. The cjeu, with reference to the application of the Employment Equality Directive, has explained the notion of disability mainly by comparing and contrasting it to the concept of sickness. Against this background, this article critically discusses recent case law and attempts to highlight that, even though the Court has firmly embraced the social model of disability envisaged by the un Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the boundaries between the concepts of sickness and disability remain blurred.


Author(s):  
Jesse Rathgeber

In this experience, learners will develop a critical consciousness of barriers to participation rooted in ableism that are “baked into” instruments. This critical consciousness will assist learners in creating controllers with lower/no barriers for disabled persons/persons with disabilities. Learners will encounter concepts such as the “social model of disability” that come from Disability Studies scholarship in order to find and address disabling features of commercially-available instruments and to design new instruments, controllers, and practices that are anti-ableist. Through these experiences, learners will develop skills and knowledge related to using microcontrollers such as the Makey Makey and coding platforms such as Scratch through an iterative design process.


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