Disability and human rights

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was the first human rights treaty to be developed by disabled people, for disabled people. Adopted by the UN in 2006, the Convention embodies and enshrines key tenets of contemporary disability scholarship and activism – from ‘nothing about us without us’ to a social understanding of disability. The CRPD is fertile terrain for disability scholarship – empirical, theoretical and critical. This chapter provides an overview of the history of human rights, the development of the disability Convention, and its main features and achievements. The chapter introduces some key areas of discussion and debate emerging in the literature on disability and human rights.