Remarks on disability rights legislation

• Published date: 18 June 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2016-0114
• Pages: 506-526
• Date: 18 June 2018
• Author: John-Stewart Gordon,Felice Tavera-Salyutov
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

Remarks on disability

rights legislation

John-Stewart Gordon

Department of Philosophy and Social Critique, Vytautas Magnus University,

Kaunas, Lithuania, and

Felice Tavera-Salyutov

University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine and comment on disability rights legislation by focusing

on international documents on people with impairments of the last decades, in order to provide more

information on the dynamics of the disability rights movement and their moral plea for full inclusion.

Design/methodology/approach –By analyzing the international legislation and most important

guidelines with respect to people with impairments, it is possible to portray a socio-political change by

unfolding the agenda of the historical dimension of the decisive events.

Findings –The long and difficult struggle of people with impairments to beneficiaries of full human rights

protection is a fundamental socio-political change that is documented by adhering to important international

legislation and guidelines.

Originality/value –The examination of recent international legislation with respect to people with

impairments provides historical context for current developments in the context of disability and full

inclusion by conceding human rights as their moral and legal foundation.

Keywords Human rights, Inclusion, Legislation, Disabilities

Paper type Research paper

The long and difficult pathway to opportunity that people with impairments[1] have

traveled through history can be seen in the humiliating situations that they have often

faced. This history is characterized by four main steps: social exclusion and neglect,

separation, integration and, finally, full socio-political inclusion. The period of social

exclusion and neglect lasted until the beginning of the last century. It was eventually

replaced by the practice of socially recognizing people with impairments, such as by

offering them (separate) education in special schools (see Gordon, 2013). The idea that

people with impairments are human beings, with the same human dignity as all other

non-impaired human beings, gained momentum from the middle of the last century in the

aftermath of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). This process,

supported by important international conventions[2] and the rise of the disability rights

movement, promoted the view that one should integrate people with impairments into

their larger environment socially, politically, culturally and economically, giving them a

better possibility of living a more fulfilling and properlife than they had during the long

ages of predominant exclusion and neglect. It ultimately resulted, in 2006, in an

international commitment to giving people with impairments full human rights protection

—the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)—that requires

full socio-political inclusion of people with impairments among the member states of

the United Nation s.

The general aim of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the struggle of people with

impairments by looking at the most important international documents on disability of the

last decades in order to depict the decisive events in this socio-political change. This change

is fundamental and shows the development of people with impairments, formerly seen

largely as people who live from charity to beneficiaries of full human rights protection.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 5, 2018

pp. 506-526

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2016-0114

Received 14 December 2016

Revised 10 April 2017

29 April 2017

Accepted 1 May 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

506

EDI

37,5

The first section briefly highlights two important points in the debate over impairment.

First, it briefly depicts three models of disability—the medical/individual model, the social

model and the human rights model—in order to provide some background for the following

sections. After that, it examines the linguistic peculiarities of the means used to denote

people with impairments in recent decades. The second section of this paper highlights the

importance of rights generally and human rights particularly in the context of disability and

sets the stage for the third part, which presents a brief overview of the international

documents with respect to disability rights. The fourth section goes beyond the current

legislation and tries to identify patterns of importance for the future of the disability

movement with respect to full inclusion. The last part provides some final remarks.

1. Preliminary remarks

Models of disability

In the history of human rights documents, one can observe an important development of

approaches to disability and persons with impairments. There are, at least, three main

models of disability: the medical model, the social model and the human rights model.

The medical model

The medical or individual model equates impairment with disability, which means that

disability is seen as a medical issue of biological dysfunction. Hence, it envisions “curing”

persons with impairments by restoring a “normal”state of living. It can be supposed that

the medical/individual approach to disability[3] was the first and—for a long time—the

predominant approach. Even today, some authors, such as John Harris (1993, 2001, 2002),

espouse this medical or individual approach. It seems clear, however, that the medical model

greatly underestimates the importance and influence of the social environment with respect

to discrimination against and neglect of people who suffer from impairments.

The social model

The social model of disability d istinguishes between disabil ity and impairment.

Its proponents claim that an impairment, which refers to the medical dimension, is not

“disabling”; rather, society and the broader environment impose the disability. For example, a

person in a wheelchair experiences discrimination when there are no ramps at a public building

such as the town hall, causing the person to be denied his or her basic citizenship rights (Ito,

2014a, p. 102). The social model was originally set forth by the Union of the Physically Impaired

against Segregation (UPIAS) (1975) in its Fundamental Principles of Disability[4], and was later

elaborated by Mike Oliver (1983). But the social model is also criticized by some, such as

Tom Shakespeare and Nicholas Watson (2002) who argue that “people are disabled both by

social barriers and by their bodies. This is straightforward and uncontroversial”(p.15).Aprecise

distinction between impairment (injury, illness or congenital condition) and disability (defined as

a societal and environmental construction) seems impossible. In this context, Shakespeare and

Watson (2002) state, “some of [the obstacles to persons with impairments] are inextricable

aspects of impairment, not generated by the environment”(p. 17). Here they give the example of

an impairment causing severe and constant pain and ask what the social environment could

change in order to eliminate this type of disability. Indeed, the underlying motif that impairments

are not disabling is simply incorrect and does not do justice to the complex interaction between a

person’s medical condition and the social environment (Shakespeare, 2006).

The human rights model

The human rights model of disability is a further development of the social model insofar that it

“locates the main ‘problem’outside the person and in society”(Quinn and Degener, 2002, p. 14)

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