Models of disability, ideas of justice, and the challenge of full participation

Abstract

The definitions of disability adopted in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) necessitate an important change in the way disability is assessed and introduce a new idea of justice in relation to persons with disabilities. The article starts by reviewing the various ‘models of disability’ prevailing in the past and the respective ideas of justice underlying them. The charity model, for instance, was rooted in ideas of divine justice and human beneficence, where care for the disabled led in practice to their being segregated from the rest of society, while the medical model saw justice in terms of treatments or compensations for individual pathologies rather than of positive enablement for active living. The CRPD overturns these models and the related conceptions of justice by emphasising society's obligations towards persons with disabilities and, above all, their human right to full inclusion and participation in society. The key concepts are empowerment and capability. In Italy these concepts and this new conception of justice have started to be applied by the Osservatorio nazionale sulla condizione delle persone con disabilità, the body created to monitor the effective application of the CRPD in Italy, and they are included in the two-year action programme on disability, approved by the Italian government in October 2013.

Keywords::

• models of disability
• empowerment
• capability
• inclusion
• participation

Notes

^1. For information on disability in the medieval period, see the website of English Heritage: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/people-and-places/disability-history/1050-1485/ (accessed 1 November 2013).

^2. In 1999 a WHO report stated that ‘Noncommunicable diseases are expected to account for an increasing share of disease burden, rising from 43% in 1998 to 73% by 2020’ (WHO 1999, 16).

^3. In the course of campaigns by the Berlusconi-owned weekly news magazine Panorama on falsified benefit claims, all persons with disabilities were in effect labelled as social parasites. See for example the cover of Panorama, 24 March 2011.

^4. The ‘Standard Rules’ were adopted at the United Nations General Assembly, forty-eighth session, Resolution 48/96, annex, of 20 December 1993. See UN website: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/dissre00.htm

^5. See the description of the Osservatorio Nazionale sulla condizione delle persone con disabilità and related links on the website of the Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali: http://www.lavoro.gov.it/Ministero/OrganiCollegiali/Pages/Osservatorio_Nazionale_disabilita.aspx (accessed 21 May 2013).

^6. The text of the ‘Decreto ministeriale’ of 5 February 1992 is available online at: http://www.handylex.org/stato/d050292.shtml

^7. Within the passages quoted from the Osservatorio's ‘Note metodologiche’ there are footnoted references to the work by ANED (2009), Bickenbach et al. (1999) and Chatterji et al. (1999), and the final acknowledgement of work done, on statistical sources, refers to the article by Solipaca et al. (2009). See also Centro Collaboratore (2010). Analogous initiatives have been developed in the fields of education and employment.

^8. This is published as an attachment (allegato) to the ‘Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 4 ottobre 2013 – Adozione del programma di azione biennale per la promozione dei diritti e l'integrazione delle persone con disabilità (13A10469)’, Gazzetta Ufficiale, Serie Generale n. 303, 28 December 2013. Available online at: http://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/atto/serie_generale/caricaDettaglioAtto/originario?atto.dataPubblicazioneGazzetta = 2013-12-28&atto.codiceRedazionale = 13A10469&elenco30giorni = true

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giampiero Griffo

Giampiero Griffo is director of the Diversity Office at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli and co-director of the Robert Castel Center for Governmentality and Disability Studies at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Naples, a member organisation of the European Academic Network on Disability. He is a member of the World Council of Disabled People's International and he serves on the board of the European Disability Forum. He is the author or co-author of numerous publications on disability rights.