Suchergebnisse

1. Right to legal capacity: Debates and legal argument -- 2. Personhood: perspectives from critical feminist, disability and queer studies -- 3. Gender, disability & decision-making: Historical discrimination -- 4. Gendered denials: Law, policy and practice -- 5. Vulnerability created by legal capacity denials -- 6. Creating change: Examples of modern reform and recommendations.

The right to make decisions is important for every individual. It allows us to express ourselves, discover our likes and dislikes, and lead our lives in the way we desire. People with cognitive disability have historically been denied this right in many different ways - sometimes informally by family members or carers, and other times formally by a courtroom or other legal authority. This book provides a discussion of the importance of decision-making and the ways in which it is currently denied to people with cognitive disability. It identifies the human right to equal recognition before the law as the key to ensuring the equal right to decision-making of people with cognitive disabilities. Looking to the future, it also provides a roadmap to achieve such equality

In this article, we draw on our experiences of law reform in Ireland to explore how to create a definition of consent to sex that is inclusive of people with cognitive disabilities. Using critical disability studies and feminist theory, we set out the context in which capacity to consent to sex law is currently operating. We critique the law on the basis that it holds people with cognitive disabilities to a different standard of sexual decision-making than others. We tell the story of the movement in Ireland to reform such law and our experiences working collaboratively with artists, disabled people's organizations and parliamentarians to achieve change.

The Disability Human Rights Clinic (DHRC) was established at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne, in 2015. Its supervisors and students conduct legislative and policy reform projects as well as strategic litigation. The DHRC was created by Anna Arstein-Kerslake to address a significant lack of resources in community-based organisations to undertake in-depth legal analysis. It uses an innovative model of clinical legal education to harness the skills of law students to fill that gap and to expose a new generation of lawyers to the emerging field of disability human rights law. In this article, we draw on our experiences running the DHRC to argue that the model it establishes can create significant scholarly output in the human rights field, direct engagement with the community, and rich doctrinal and experiential learning for students.

Sexual offence laws in many Commonwealth jurisdictions criminalise sexual activity with disabled people with cognitive impairments. Many of these laws were created with the intent to protect disabled people with cognitive impairments from sexual abuse. However, they often preclude the possibility for the individual to consent to sexual activity. This preclusion from consenting to sex has the potential to create significant hardship for disabled people with cognitive impairments. It can create barriers to sexual expression and romantic relationships. In addition, it may interfere with the right of disabled people with cognitive impairments to sexual agency, which is protected as part of the right to legal capacity in Article 12 of the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Many of these sexual offence laws are either colonial remnants or may be a product of colonial influence. Many of the most restrictive laws date back to colonial rule and bear remarkable similarity to laws in the United Kingdom (UK) around the time of colonisation. The UK has since enacted reform in this area and has less restrictive laws. However, even these reformed laws often present barriers to the recognition of sexual consent from disabled people with cognitive impairments. This article reviews sexual offence laws across Commonwealth jurisdictions and analyses their compliance with Article 12 of the CRPD. It identifies a potential need to reform antiquated laws that appear to be a remnant of colonial rule and more modern laws that may continue to create barriers to sexual expression and romantic relationships for disabled people with cognitive impairments.