Critical Perspectives on Human Rights and Disability Law

Edited by Rioux (health policy and management, York U., Canada), Basser (law, La Trobe U., Australia), and Jones (an independent researcher and lawyer and former director of the Australian Human Rights Centre at the U. of New South Wales), this collection of 16 papers explores the interrelationships between human rights principles, human rights law, domestic law, and the experience of people with disabilities, with an emphasis on promoting a critical understanding of the ways in which legal constructions of knowledge are embedded in both understandings of the disabled person in law and in the ideology that is produced surrounding disabilities. A central theme animating the volume is that justice for people with disabilities must be founded on the human rights principles of dignity, equality, and inclusion and participation, both independently and together. The papers have therefore been organized by the editors into sections addressing these principles of human rights in the context of disability law, human rights issues related to the dignity of the person, inequalities between people with disabilities and those without, and issues of inclusion and participation. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The editors are legal and disability studies scholars who have used both individual experience with disability and contemporary disability theory to address the systemic nature of disability discrimination in law and judicial decision making. The outcomes and processes which promote the human rights principles of dignity, equality and inclusion in practice are explored through their work. Marcia Rioux is a Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management; in the MA and PhD (Critical Disability Studies) and in the M.A./PhD in Health Policy and Equity at York University, Toronto. She is also the Director of the York University Institute of Health Research. She has published and consulted widely on disability, human rights, disability rights monitoring, and disability policy and law issues both nationally and internationally. Lee Ann Basser is an Associate Professor in the School of Law at La Trobe University in Australia. She has researched and written extensively in the areas of Disability Law & Policy, Family Law and Children’s Rights as well as Health Law. She has particular expertise in comparative disability discrimination law and is internationally acclaimed in the area of education rights for children with disabilities. Melinda Jones, a former Director of the Australian Human Rights Centre at the University of New South Wales, is an independent researcher and human rights lawyer. She has written extensively on human rights, particularly in the areas of disability, gender and race as well as being one of the authors of a key text on Australian Administrative Law.