The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted in 2006 and ratified by Australia in 2008. Since then, recognition for disability rights has grown steadily in laws and policies.
It should follow that things are better for people with disability — in short, more equal.
Yet despite legal measures, as the evidence gathered by the Disability Royal Commission and elsewhere shows, recognition of the rights of disabled people lags behind that of many other marginalised groups.
Disability seems to be a different kind of difference.
The problem lies in limitations — not the limitations of what people with disability can do, but the limitations of what is accepted as "standard" human ability.
Promoting equality and inclusion for people with disability means accepting the reality of disability and making the maximum effort to build accessibility into everyday life.
The recommendations handed down by the Disability Royal Commission in September 2023 emphasised that taking a human rights approach is central to eradicating violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability.
In its response to the Commission’s report, the Australian government committed itself to advancing disability rights through ongoing law and policy reform, including a consideration of the Commission’s recommendations to establish a new Disability Rights Act.
Following on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, several specialised rights instruments have been created – covering the rights of women, indigenous peoples, migrants, and people with disability.
Specialised instruments like these are designed to take account of the particular priorities and interests of certain groups and ways in which members of the groups are made vulnerable.
These distinctive priorities and vulnerabilities are often simply overlooked when a more general view of human rights is taken.
So, for example, Article 19 of the disability convention draws attention to the right of disabled people to live in the community, with choices equal to others, including the right to choose their place of residence and with whom they live.
This right has to be explicitly stated, to counter the long history of placing people with disability in group institutions.
Yet 18 years on, changes that respect this right by producing a more accessible and safe environment often still face opposition: the state governments of both NSW and WA have so far refused to adopt the Silver Liveable Design Standards of the 2022 National Construction Code, which set minimum standards of accessibility and flexibility in new housing.
Similarly, because people with disability are disproportionately affected by armed conflicts, disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, Article 11 of the convention explicitly requires states to protect disabled people in these situations as much as the rest of their population.
Treated differently
Article 11 draws attention to the fact that people with disability may be more vulnerable, but also often are treated as less worthy of protection because of their disability — for example, by failing to make emergency shelters accessible, or (as happened in some countries) explicitly stating that intellectually disabled people should not be prioritised for critical care during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Disability is treated differently because most of us underestimate how much needs to change in order for people with disability to experience equality.
Disability has traditionally been seen as a failure of a body part to function as it should — it’s assumed the problem lies in the body being ‘wrong’.
By contrast, the social models of disability that emerged in the last half century say that the problem lies in the mismatch between a non-standard body or mind and an environment that is tailored only to the standard, and that generally fails to accommodate even relatively minor differences.
The classic example here is that a wheelchair user’s experience of their disability is very different in a fully accessible building than in one without lifts, automatic entrances and wide doorways.
What this means is that societies don’t just fail to accommodate disability — they can be actively disabling in themselves.
It means that a human rights approach to disability must go beyond simply recognising that people with disability have the right to participate in the world.
Respecting disability rights includes an obligation to change how the world is organised, so that, as far as possible, differences of body and mind are not disabling.
A second reason disability is treated differently is that it generates more ambivalence than many other marginalised identities.
For most of these, simply having that feature — being older, a member of an ethnic minority, a woman and so on — isn’t generally considered a problem in itself.
We recognise that the root cause of the discrimination that women experience in the workplace isn’t their sex, but sexism. If sexist attitudes could be changed, women would be much more likely to experience equality at work, because changed attitudes would drive the modification of workplace practices and behaviour.
It may be argued that it would be too expensive or difficult to do so, but nobody actually suggests that the world would be better off if women didn’t exist at all.
It’s different for disability, because most people probably do believe that the world would be better without disability. That’s why we put a lot of effort into preventive medicine, environmental protections and safety regulations, all aimed at avoiding disabling illnesses or accidents.
But at the same time, we want people with disability to be fully included in society and for their rights to be fully respected.
So two fundamental changes are needed if disability rights are to be a reality.
The first is to accept that while there can be ambivalence towards disability, this shouldn’t translate into being lukewarm about disabled people’s right to equality and inclusion.
The second is to grasp that disability rights don’t mean doing the minimum necessary for accessibility, but a more radical transformation.
This is what disability rights are all about — not special measures for special people, but changing standard operating procedures so that the widest possible range of human capacities can participate in our world.
Jackie Leach Scully is Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute at UNSW, Sydney, and has been a disability activist for most of her life.
Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.