System for monitoring and promoting human rights for people with disabilities around the world

Aug 10 2004

Thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), a York University-based group of international researchers are pressing ahead with plans to develop a system for monitoring and promoting human rights for people with disabilities around the world.

Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI) received confirmation earlier this year that its plan for developing monitoring tools and establishing pilot sites to track the progress of services to people with disabilities will receive support from the Swedish government. The group is led by Marcia Rioux, director of York’s graduate program in Critical Disability Studies and Bengt Lindqvist, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on disability.

“This funding is wonderful recognition of both the importance of disability as a human rights issue and York’s position at the forefront of interdisciplinary research in this field,” Rioux said. “In addition to the new master’s degree in Critical Disability Studies inaugurated this year, York has made a concerted attempt at being an accessible university.”

Rioux’s research into disability as a human rights issue has prompted three members of the National Human Rights Commission of India to visit York this week. The committee members will visit faculty and students Wednesday to discuss their country’s efforts toward integrating disabilities into a human rights framework and excluding it as grounds for discrimination.

One of two principal investigators on the DRPI project, Rioux also chairs the Atkinson School of Health Policy & Management and is director of York’s Institute for Health Research. She and co-author Ezra Zubrow recently published Mapping Disability, an atlas of literacy and disability in Canada that draws on research into services and barriers from a similar perspective.

“People with disabilities have been traditionally marginalized in society,” said Rioux. “We need to look at disabilities as a rights issue and a consequence of social, legal, economic and political barriers.”

The UN estimates that 600 million people, at least 10 per cent of the world’s population, have some form of disability and face numerous barriers to full participation in society. The UN recognized inequality and discrimination related to disability as violations of human rights in 1998. In 2001, the UN began the process of developing an international Convention to protect and promote those rights and it is currently being developed.

DRPI hopes to set up two monitoring sites in Europe and Canada and in Africa and Latin America that will serve as models for future sites in other countries. Data collected at each site will be used to create a world-wide resource for legislators and human rights advocates.

The group has called on other organizations such as the International Bar Association, Interights, the Commonwealth Legal Education Association and law schools, including Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, to assist in developing its strategy. DRPI also plans to work with global human rights monitor Amnesty International by asking it to include rights of people with disabilities in its activities.

DRPI plans to launch legal test cases aimed at urging governments to include provisions for people with disabilities in legislation. This strategic litigation is one of five areas of focus for monitoring. Others include individual cases, case law, legislation, media portrayal of people with disabilities, and government programs, services and practices.”