Abstract
In Disability Studies the evolution of conceptual models is often portrayed as linear, with a nineteenth-century charity model shifting to the medical model that dominated disability discourse in the twentieth century. This is then assumed to be largely unchallenged until the 1970s, when an emergent Disability Rights Movement re-framed issues into the social model, from which evolved a rights-based model. This paper documents two early efforts to address disability issues submitted to the League of Nations: the Crippled Child’s Bill of Rights in 1931 and a ‘Memorial’ requesting the establishment of an International Bureau of Information on Crippled Children in 1929. Neither submission achieved its stated goals, yet both reflect early attempts to place disability within wider social contexts.
Highlights
The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its subsequent ratification by an increasing number of countries reflects an important milestone in both disability rights and human rights (United Nations 2006)
Ratification of the CRPD is being accompanied by efforts throughout the United Nations system, as well as within bilateral agencies, national governments, and at local and regional levels to create an evidence base upon which disability rights can be monitored and evaluated (Enable 2012)
This is a brief history of two linked documents, both sponsored by the International Society for Crippled Children that foreshadow ideas that would only re-emerge in the past few decades
Summary
The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its subsequent ratification by an increasing number of countries reflects an important milestone in both disability rights and human rights (United Nations 2006). The CRPD did not come out of thin air, – it was built on a series of advocacy campaigns that produced documents which helped to clarify and define goals, aims and aspirations This is a brief history of two linked documents, both sponsored by the International Society for Crippled Children (today known as Rehabilitation International) that foreshadow ideas that would only re-emerge in the past few decades. These documents are almost entirely forgotten, but both deserve a place in disability history. The progressive nature of these two documents indicates that while the ‘medical model’ of disability was dominant in the first part of the twentieth century, the actual history of addressing disabilities issues was, in some cases, more complex and nuanced than is often assumed
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