Disability, Rights Monitoring, and Social Change

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.

Marcia H. Rioux is a Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University and Principal Investigator and Co-Director of Disability Rights Promotion International.

Paula C. Pinto is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lisbon, where she also coordinates the Observatory on Disability and Human Rights.

Gillian Parekh is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.