Disability and Human Rights

Abstract

Human is a pervasive concept in contemporary societies. It shapes everyday language and culture, it tinges political rhetoric and permeates literary works, movies, art, and media. As a matter of fact, as Greco states, has been one of most influential concepts of past three centuries and is an essential part of fabric of modern conceptions of State and society (11). Over past few decades, research on human has been experiencing two main changes. First, after many years of scanty attention, disability have come gain a central position within human research agenda, especially if compared issues of gender and ethnicity. Such a renewed interest was certainly spurred by approval, in 2006, of United Nations' Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), a milestone for disability rights, quoted and discussed by most of authors in this special issue. Moreover, UNCRPD stands out as a great achievement in a wider process that has been intensifying over last decade: since its approval, specific laws and guidelines have been developed in many countries, with committees and task forces being established for advocacy of disability rights. Disability itself, and of persons with disabilities, have thus become major issues within human debate as well as in research. Second, dominance of legalistic approach has been challenged. Scholars have come realize need for a more nuanced vision that takes into account social, anthropological, and aspects involved in human discourse. As Freeman recalls, the dominance of legal analyses of human has some extent been challenged, and long sleep of social science of human is beginning come an (viii). Over past few years, such an awakening of social sciences' interest in human has emerged as a growing claim regarding need for a studies approach human rights, sometimes also referred as critical studies of human rights.Although the intervention of critical theory into human theories and debates has been relatively rare (Erni 221), many scholars agree that interdisciplinary methodology generated within studies is indeed a fruitful approach best face challenges posed by complexity of human discourse. In recent years, it has become increasingly common within studies come across statements such as: cultural studies as a discipline, although slow have approached and theorized human terrain, is in fact specifically attuned studying human in practice and (Offord and Ryan 33); or to extent that issues of social exclusion, inequality, identity, power, and representation engage us, studies are practically invested in human discourse and praxis (Coombe 233); and even, cultural studies provides a unique set of tools through which many of most important issues at heart of study of human can be illuminated (Mitoma 14).Grounded within wider area of studies of law, a study of human is deeply rooted in such fields as socio-legal studies, legal anthropology, identity theory, and critical theory. Common all these fields, though sometimes with a critical attitude, is idea that law is a social-constructionist artefact. Law not only shapes culture but also is in itself shaped by culture: it is a product bonded to, and bounded by, social struggles and mutations. At core of interpretation of law as a artefact is idea that law is a set of forms of discourses, such as narrative-a narrative discourse that can voice or silence Other. Treaties, codes, trials and all other legal documents and praxes both describe and prescribe forms of life. The universalist presumption-founded on a legalistic approach-of human as panacea for all social inequalities has long proven be largely ineffective, such an extent that some scholars have been proclaiming the end of human rights (Luban 14). …