Can International Criminal Law Help Express the Unrealized Value of Disabled Lives?

Abstract

As international criminal lawyers and diplomats discuss the Draft Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity on the one hand, and the potential of adding a fifth crime, ecocide, to the Rome Statute on the other, Janet Lord, William Pons, and Michael Stein issue a well-timed and compelling call to demonstrate our understanding that people with disabilities (PWD) are a part of humanity. The authors map the many crimes and various situations in which PWD have been and continue to be specifically targeted, and persuasively argue that it is past time for the system of international criminal law to embrace prosecutions of crimes against PWD. In so doing, the authors make a series of important recommendations for international criminal law: for example, that international criminal processes must be made fully accessible to PWD. This essay offers three reflections on the authors’ call to use international criminal prosecutions, specifically at the International Criminal Court (ICC), to elevate the rights of PWD, centering around the following questions: (1) do the people of the world believe that disabled lives matter; (2) if they do not, might international criminal law help shape domestic laws and overcome ableism; and, relatedly, (3) can the ICC create the necessary change? Or put another way, how capacious can and should the category of “crimes against humanity” be since institutional credibility and longevity are concerns?