Disability, Rights Monitoring, and Social Change
Building Power out of Evidence
Edited by Marcia H. Rioux, Paula C. Pinto, Gillian Parekh
Overview
The 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has provided a significant catalyst and a legal mandate for disability rights monitoring, and discussions on disability rights are breaking new ground across disciplines. Disability, Rights Monitoring, and Social Change is an important and timely collection that explores and challenges the ways in which disability rights are monitored.
The contributors to this edited volume range from grassroots activists to international scholars and United Nations advisors. The chapters address the current theoretical, methodological, and practical issues surrounding disability rights monitoring and offer a detailed look at law and policy reforms, best practices, and holistic methods. This unique compilation crosses the divide between the global South and North and explores the complex issues of intersectionality that arise for women with disabilities, Indigenous peoples with disabilities, and people with diverse disabilities.
Its participatory methodology—calling for the inclusion of people with disabilities in processes that involve them—and its local and international perspective make this book a critical contribution to the fields of rights monitoring and disability studies. Appropriate for courses on disability, human rights, social justice, policy, and advocacy, this volume serves as a guide and learning tool for anyone interested in disability rights monitoring and, more generally, the effective practice of monitoring human rights.
Reviews
“This edited collection, with contributions from academics and from persons with disabilities, offers unique insights into the monitoring of disability rights. In my view, there are two strengths of this fine volume. First, its chapters cover a broad range of complex issues relating to the monitoring process. Second, it brings to the forefront the critical role played by persons with disabilities and their organizations. This book will make a timely and important contribution to the area of disability and human rights.”
— Ron McCallum AO, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney / Former member and immediate past chairperson, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
“The great victories realized as nation after nation ratifies the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities give way to a new chapter in the long march toward emancipation and equality. Against the inert gravity of exclusion, deprivation, and systemic injustice, disability movements now pursue the deep social change promised in rights rhetoric, but not yet felt in people’s lives. Building Power out of Evidence illuminates our way forward on this march, presenting a compelling argument for innovative, strategic, and fully participatory engagement in monitoring rights compliance and sustaining conditions of dignity, inclusion, and respect for all persons.
— Catherine Frazee, School of Disability Studies, Ryerson University
“This book reveals not only how little work there is on disability rights monitoring, but also how the capacity to meaningfully act on and monitor these rights is uneven and challenging across the world. It advances innovative and interesting experiences of monitoring disability rights that are told from the perspectives of different stakeholders from around the globe. It invites us to revisit our understanding of monitoring and greatly contributes to enhancing social change. Ultimately, it is a rich and informative book that seeks to unlock the potential of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”
— Charlotte V. McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor, World Bank Group
“This book is both a roadmap and a call to action for disability rights advocates across the world as we seek to realize the promise of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Impressive in both its scope and relevance, this volume brings together leading scholars and activists from across the globe to address the rationales, methodologies, and practice of human rights monitoring. The volume eschews a neat academic approach in favour of a much richer offering grounded in community and the experience of people with disabilities in all their diversity. This is a ‘must have’ handbook.”
— Tim Stainton, School of Social Work and the Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship, University of British Columbia
“The realization of human rights through the efforts of others may feel like an imposition, one that fails the objective of empowering those whose rights are being monitored. The participatory monitoring advocated in this book makes people with disabilities crucial to the realization of their own rights. Thus, the ethic of consultation, participation, and inclusion that drove the disability rights movement and the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is employed to turn the promises of international agreements into reality. The workability of the ethic is first theoretically expounded and then established with cross-country case studies that employ participatory monitoring.”
— Amita Dhanda, Center for Disability Studies, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR)
“Disability, Rights Monitoring, and Social Change provides a comprehensive analysis of human rights monitoring. Moving beyond the formal monitoring mechanisms of the CRPD, the book considers multinational monitoring, as well as monitoring at local, regional, and national levels. While the focus of the book is on disability rights, the authors recognize that people with disabilities have multiple identities and that any monitoring mechanism must take account of the full range of intersectional issues that reflect their lived experience. This innovative and groundbreaking book has application to all human rights monitoring and provides specific examples from across the globe.”
— Lee Ann Basser, La Trobe Law School, La Trobe University / Critical Disability Studies, York University