Archive for June, 2009

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – European and Scandinavian Perspectives (Brill Academic Publishers, 2009)

Posted on June 24, 2009. Filed under: Human Rights | Tags: disability, Human Rights, human rights book review, International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations |

The very first human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations in the twenty first century was The International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Its aim is to secure the effective and equal human rights for the estimated 650,000,000 persons with disabilities the world over. It reaches this goal by by tailoring gerneral human rights norms to their circumstances. It mirrors and advances the shift away from welfare to rights in the context of disability. The Convention itself represents a mix between non-discrimination and other substantive human rights and gives practical effect to the idea that all human rights are indivisible and interdependent. This collection of essays, edited meticulously by Oddný Arnardóttir, Mjöll, and Gerard Quinn, examines these developments from the global, European and Scandinavian perspectives and the challenge of transposing its provisions into national law. It marks the exciting coming of age of disabilty as a core human rights concern.

A book worth owning. Our thumbs up.