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Welcome to the website for the Centre for Disability Law and Policy’s Summer School 2011

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - From Paper Rules to Action

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6-11 June 2011

School Directors, Professor Gerard Quinn (NUI Galway, Ireland) & Professor Michael Stein (Harvard Program on Disability, USA)

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy, at the National Univeristy of Ireland, Galway, is pleased to announce its third Summer School. The purpose of this six day Summer School is to equip participants with the insights and skills necessary to translate the generalities of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into tangible reform for persons with disabilities.

The participants will include persons with disabilities, their families, civil society groups of persons with disabilities as well as advocates for disability law reform, lawyers, policy makers and policy analysts and others.
A legal background is not assumed. It is open to all who are interested in how law and policy can advance the status of persons with disabilities.

The Faculty includes senior academics, practitioners and policy makers from around the world who have been directly and actively engaged in drafting and implementing the Convention.

They include Michael Bach (Inclusion International), Andrea Coomber (Interights, London), Christian Courtis, (Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights), Dr. Gauthier de Beco (University of Louvain), Dr. Eilionoir Flynn (NUI Galway), Rosemary Kayess (University of New South Wales, Sydney), Janet Lord (University of Maryland, BlueLaw International LLP), Mark Priestley (University of Leeds), Prof. Gerard Quinn (NUI Galway), Eric Rosenthal (Disability Rights International), Prof. Michael Stein (Harvard Law School Project on Disability), Lisa Waddington (Maastricht University), Sir. Michael Wood (Essex Street Chambers, London, Member of the International Law Commission).

The Programme will introduce participants to the nature of the convention, to treaty interpretation in general, to the general concept of equality in the convention (and some of the relevant innovations in the CRPD). It will draw out the differences between obligations of immediate effect (non-discrimination) and obligations of conduct (to ’progressively achieve’) social and economic rights and how to identify which provisions in the convention create which kinds of obligations. It will focus on certain core rights such as the right to legal capacity, the right to independent living, and the right to inclusive education. It will also focus on important provisions in the convention protecting people with disabilities against violence, exploitation and abuse. It will look at the practical institutional changes needed to give effect to the convention at national level (the obligation to create a ’focal point’, etc). And it will explore the implications of the CRPD for development aid programmes throughout the world.

A key feature of the Summer School will be its emphasis on imparting practical skills in using the convention – no matter your region or country. There will be sessions on how to interact with the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the relevant treaty monitoring body), how to draft Shadow Reports, how to craft effective Complaints under the Optional Protocol and how to influence the drafting of Questions by the UN Committee to the States Parties.

In keeping with the practical orientation of the Summer School there will be a Participatory Exercise based on a problem disseminated at the beginning of the Summer School and culminating in a hearing at the end. All participants are expected to be involved at some level. Prior legal knowledge or experience is not required. The aim is to provide the participants with a forum to sharpen their argumentative strategies based on the CRPD and to identify weaknesses as well as strengths in the different argumentative approaches. They will be mentored throughout the week in crafting their arguments by the international Facult

Contact Information

Email: events.cdlpnuigalway.ie
Text/SMS: +353 (0)87 6660634
Tel.: +353 (0)91 494012

Address:
Centre for Disability Law and Policy
National University of Ireland, Galway
Galway
Ireland.