Human Rights and Disabled Persons: Essays and Relevant Human Rights Instruments

The United Nations' Decade of Disabled Persons has served as a time for standard setting in the field of human rights and disability, and has created the need to evaluate the relevant human rights instruments for disabled persons. This unique volume responds to this need by offering a collection of profound essays on the subject of human rights and disability, and an extensive compilation of international and regional human rights instruments, guidelines and principles which are of special relevance to disabled people. It will serve organizations of disabled people as well as governments throughout the world as a resource and as an introduction to human rights and disability. No comprehensive compilation of this kind exists, and so far commentaries on the meaning of the International Bill of Human Rights or other human rights treaties have not made reference to disabled people. This shortcoming may be one reason for the widely prevailing notion that disability is a welfare issue rather than a human rights issue.