Rights Enabled: The Disability Revolution from the US, to Germany and Japan, to the United Nations

This article explores the realization of the right to access in France, based on biographical interviews with people with mobility or visual impairments. I lay out an original theoretical framework for studying rights realization at the individual level. Although rights activation is the horizon of most rights consciousness research, I argue that rights do not necessarily need to be activated in order to be made real. This realization may also derive from effective policy implementation. In France, however, disabled individuals are very active in realizing their right to access, in a context of insufficient implementation. Moreover, although there is limited collective mobilization, several types of policy feedbacks fuel rights activation and the emergence of grievances regarding the lack of accessibility. Studying the realization of the right to access thus opens up promising perspectives for sociolegal research.

Section: The Right To Access In France: a Context Of Partial Implemen...mentioning

confidence: 97%

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confidence: 99%

Realizing the Right to Access in France: Between Implementation and Activation

Revillard¹

2019

“…These theoretical developments have grown out of the disability movement and have been accompanied by the introduction of disability rights. The disability rights approach translates the demands of the disability movement into a political and legal framework that offers a new vision of disability equality, dignity, access, and participation (Bagenstos 2009;Heyer 2015a;Silvers 1998;Stein and Stein 2007).…”

Section: The Changing Understanding Of Disabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Together with disability activists, disability studies scholars have endeavored to transform the prevailing social and cultural meanings of disability from an individual and medical approach to a social and affirmative approach that accepts disabled persons as full and equal members of society (Oliver 1990;Shakespeare, 2006;Swaine and French 2000). The legal manifestations of this shift are the introduction of disability rights discourse and the enactment of national and international disability rights instruments (Heyer 2015a;Stein and Stein 2007). These instruments cover a wide range of rights, from access and employment to housing and education.…”

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confidence: 99%

Disability, Rights, and the Construction of Sexuality in Tort Claims

Mor¹,

Pikkel²

2019

This study empirically investigates how courts define sexuality of disabled persons in the absence of a formal right to sexuality. The focus of the study is tort law, a field ungoverned by direct disability rights legislation, assuming that tort law is the law of disablement as it concerns the transformative process of becoming disabled. The study investigates the types of damages courts have awarded for harm to sexual functioning, inquiring to whom and under what conditions have they been awarded. Additionally, it examines the discourse that characterizes each type of damages, and the legal, social, medical, and healthcare policy developments that have affected courts' rhetoric and reasoning. Our findings reveal shifting trends in scale, content, and inclusiveness of beneficiaries in terms of gender and age. Over time, courts have adopted a more hopeful and dynamic approach to disabled persons' sexuality while remaining within an individual‐medical framework. We suggest that these shifting trends can be linked to the slow diffusion of the social‐affirmative approach to disability, the limits of tort law as a field, and the role of healthcare policy in shaping the landscape of tort claims.

“…The ADA broke new ground by combining an element of “positive rights” that compels the state and private actors to provide certain means for disabled people to enjoy their other rights. Specifically, it imposes a duty of reasonable accommodations on society in order to remove barriers and alter environments to allow for equal opportunities and participation for disabled people (Heyer : 44–45). Failing to provide reasonable accommodations constitutes discrimination (ADA 42 U.S.C.…”

Section: Section I: Disability Rights and Perceptions Of Fakerymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fear of the Disability Con: Perceptions of Fraud and Special Rights Discourse

Dorfman¹

2019

This article presents a new framework for analyzing the development and implementation of disability law: the prism of the fear of “the disability con”—popular perceptions of fraud and fakery. We all encounter disability rights and accommodations in everyday life. However, people with disabilities pay a price for the legal recognition of their rights. People who park in disabled parking spots, use service dogs, move to the front of lines, receive Social Security benefits, or request academic accommodations are often viewed as faking disabilities and abusing the law. This disability con stereotype thus serves as an important invisible barrier preventing Americans with disabilities from fully taking part in society, as it not only undermines the public legitimacy of rights but also restricts the design and implementation of the legal regime illustrating those. Nevertheless, this moral panic around disability con in American society and its manifestations has yet to be studied in a systematic‐empirical way, nor has it been addressed in sociolegal scholarship. Using a mixed‐methods approach composed of an original nationally representative survey along with in‐depth interviews, this article fills this gap. The data suggest that the stereotype of disability con applies to multiple disability rights across venues and contexts; that nearly 60% of Americans with disabilities feel that others question their disability; that the stereotype of disability con extends to visible disabilities and to less apparent ones; and that, counterintuitively, the people most suspicious are nondisabled individuals with a personal connection to a disabled person and disabled people who experience suspicion themselves. Based on the richer understanding of the sociolegal phenomenon, this article suggests strategies to increase trust and reduce suspicion of the disability con.