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