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THE INDIVISIBILITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2018

Gauthier de Beco
Gauthier de Beco*
Affiliation:
Reader in Human Rights, University of Huddersfield, [email protected].
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Abstract

This article argues that a new understanding of the indivisibility of human rights has emerged through the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD has blurred the distinction between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic and social rights, on the other. After showing how this distinction has been blurred in the Convention, the article critically analyses the impact this has had on the concept of indivisibility, as well as its consequences for international human rights law more generally. It shows that there is now a shift away from a preoccupation with different categories of rights and towards concern for the real and actual enjoyment of human rights.

Keywords

civil and political rightsdisabled peopleeconomic and social rightshuman rightsindivisibility
Type
Articles
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 141 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2018 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Paul Hunt (University of Essex), Margot Salomon (London School of Economics), Jenny Goldschmidt (University of Utrecht), Surya Subedi (University of Leeds), Michael Stein (Harvard University), Ian Cram (University of Leeds) and Jean d'Aspremont (University of Manchester and Sciences Po) for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article. He benefited from feedback during a presentation on the topic at the occasion of the 16th Association of Human Rights Institutions (AHRI) Conference organized by the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights in Utrecht on 2–4 September 2016. The author is also grateful for the helpful comments of the two anonymous reviewers as well as the editor-in-chief. All errors remain his sole responsibility.

References

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