Abstract:The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is a modern human rights treaty with innovative components. It impacts on disability studies as well as human rights law. Two innovations are scrutinized in this article: the model of disability and the equality and discrimination concepts of the CRPD. It is argued that the CRPD manifests a shift from the medical model to the human rights model of disability. Six propositions are offered why and how the human rights model differs from the social model of disability. It is further maintained that the CRPD introduces a new definition of discrimination into international public law. The underlying equality concept can be categorized as transformative equality with both individual and group oriented components. The applied methodology of this research is legal doctrinal analysis and disability studies model analysis. The main finding is that the human rights model of disability improves the social model of disability. Three different models of disability can be attributed to different concepts of equality. The medical model corresponds with formal equality, while the social model with substantive equality and the human rights model can be linked with transformative equality.
Research has the potential to be a powerful tool for the realisation of the rights of disabled people. However, antiquated research practices continue to marginalise disabled people by excluding them from research; inadequately remunerating them for participation in research; undertaking research that assumes difference; and not including their voice in the leadership design or implementation of research. This article builds on emancipatory, participatory and inclusive research methodologies to introduce a new human rights-based disability research methodology that presents a roadmap to overcome these problems and transform research into a means of rights realisation. It presents a protocol for the methodology that was created by the international Disability Human Rights Research Network. Finally, it explores many challenges that researchers may face when endeavouring to implement the methodology.
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