Janet E. Lord

Disability and global development

The United States invests billions of taxpayer dollars each year into foreign assistance programs that foster international diplomacy and development directed toward improving the quality of life for people around the world. These programs develop economies and combat poverty, promote democracy and governance, build new infrastructure, advance and protect human rights, among other development goals. The United States cannot effectively accomplish the goals of foreign assistance programs unless it undertakes measures to ensure that the programs are accessible to and inclusive of people with disabilities. The United States has been a leader in advancing the rights of people with disabilities and must continue to promote disability rights through its international development work. Overseas economic development will not be successful unless people with disabilities are included. Because of the significant number of people with disabilities in developing countries, if they are not included, the very economic growth the United States is trying to foster will be hindered. The goals of democracy and governance programs cannot be achieved without the inclusion of people with disabilities. In many countries, domestic law contains blatant discriminatory provisions for people with disabilities that undermine access to justice and full participation in society. The provisions that discriminate against people with disabilities include arbitrary exclusions in electoral codes, sweeping plenary guardianship laws with no due-process protections, discriminatory banking practices, and inaccessible court proceedings. National disability legal frameworks remain underdeveloped throughout the world.

Peacebuilding and reintegrating ex-combatants with disabilities

There is a significant gap in post-conflict reintegration processes when it comes to ex-combatants with disabilities, notwithstanding an apparent acknowledgement that physical and mental trauma impact civilians and ex-combatants alike in large numbers and that social reintegration is vital to peaceful transitions. Moreover, processes aimed to reintegrate ex-combatants are typically disconnected from broader efforts to build and sustain the legal institutions that support the rights of the most marginalised groups in conflict affected countries. We examine the implications of this marginalisation of ex-combatants with disabilities and set our analysis within the framework of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Charting the Development of Human Rights Law Through the CRPD

International human rights law is an increasingly articulate legal regime that applies core human rights principles to populations subject to historic disadvantage and to thematically focused areas. Since the adoption of the International Bill of Human Rights, the human rights system has evolved not only in content but also in institutional structures and mechanisms. Consequently, the human rights system has witnessed an increase in its attendant lawmaking potential. The adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD or Convention) reflects this accretion. One of its core mandates is to channel and make applicable existing human rights obligations to the specific lived experiences of persons with disabilities. Indeed, the call for a disability-specific treaty arose largely due to the eliding—explicitly or programmatically—of disability rights from the scope and content of otherwise universal protection accorded to all persons under the international human rights system.