The current use and future potential of United Nations human rights instruments in the context of disability

The present study is about the current use and future potential of the United Nations human rights instruments in the specific field of disability. Over 600 million people, or approximately 10 per cent of the world’s population, have a disability of one form or another. Over two thirds of them live in developing countries. Only 2 per cent of disabled children in the developing world receive any education or rehabilitation. The link between disability and poverty and social exclusion is direct and strong throughout the world. A dramatic shift in perspective has taken place over the past two decades from an approach motivated by charity towards the disabled to one based on rights. In essence, the human rights perspective on disability means viewing people with disabilities as subjects and not as objects. It entails moving away from viewing people with disabilities as problems towards viewing them as holders of rights. Importantly, it means locating problems outside the disabled person and addressing the manner in which various economic and social processes accommodate the difference of disability - or not, as the case may be. The debate about the rights of the disabled is therefore connected to a larger debate about the place of difference in society. The disability rights debate is not so much about the enjoyment of specific rights as it is about ensuring the equal effective enjoyment of all human rights, without discrimination, by people with disabilities. The non-discrimination principle helps make human rights in general relevant in the specific context of disability, just as it does in the contexts of age, sex and children. Non-discrimination, and the equal effective enjoyment of all human rights by people with disabilities, are therefore the dominant theme of the long-overdue reform in the way disability and the disabled are viewed throughout the world.