Journal•ISSN: 1533-6808
THE HUMAN RIGHTS BRIEF
About: THE HUMAN RIGHTS BRIEF is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Human rights & International human rights law. It has an ISSN identifier of 1533-6808. Over the lifetime, 337 publications have been published receiving 1507 citations.
Topics: Human rights, International human rights law, Right to property, International law, Public international law
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a paradigm shift from substituted to supported decision-making, which represents nothing less than a “paradigm shift away from well-established butincreasingly discredited notions of substituted decision making.
Abstract: In deceptively simple language, Article 12 of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(“CRPD”), Equal Recognition before the law,
provides that “States Parties shall recognize that persons with
disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others
in all aspects of life.” If, as is clear from the deliberations that
produced this article, Article 12’s use of the term “legal capacity”
includes not simply the capacity to have rights (or passive capacity)
but also the capacity to act or exercise one’s rights, an important
question that arises is how to address the circumstances of
individuals with disabilities who may not be able to exercise
their legal capacity without some kind of assistance or intervention.
Article 12(3) addresses this question in language that once
again seems straightforward and
uncontroversial: “States Parties
shall take appropriate measures
to provide access by persons
with disabilities to the support
they may require in exercising
their legal capacity.” Yet this
use of the word “support,” and
the related concept of supported
decision making, represents nothing
less than a “paradigm shift”
away from well-established but
increasingly discredited notions
of substituted decision making.
Rhetorical identification of the
shift from substituted to supported
decision making, however, is one thing; understanding
what these terms mean, and fully implementing a regime truly
oriented toward supporting rather than supplanting the decision making
rights of people with disabilities, is quite another matter.
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44 citations