Indigenous Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Abstract

This article analyses how disability human rights protections and processes under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (crpd) have responded to the heightened vulnerability created when disability intersects with indigeneity. It considers the evolution of international human rights law instruments for indigenous persons with disabilities. It further examines the drafting history of the crpd related to indigenous-specific content and examines the crpd Committee’s engagement with the human rights protections and violations of indigenous persons with disabilities. It demonstrates that the crpd Committee has advanced these rights by acknowledging the rights of indigenous persons in the general course of its work, but has fallen short of adequately recognising the special vulnerabilities that are created when disability and indigeneity intersect. This evaluation is illustrated by expounding on the crpd Committee’s recommendation in Noble v Australia, a communication brought by an indigenous person with a ‘mental and intellectual disability’ whose indigenous status was not engaged.