LIST OF PANELS

Focused on individualised disability policy, the objectives of this panel are to bring critical attention to the hidden conditions, contradictions and impacts on disability rights across different policy frameworks and operating arrangements; expose and benchmark how countries approach rights obligations and the extent to which these are being met; and identify strategies to inform more comprehensive and robust policy responses to safeguard rights.

Article 19 of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) puts the onus on countries to address equal rights and choices for persons with disabilities, although the promotion and protection of rights is left to the discretion of individual countries. Unfortunately, domestic disability policy and law are often weak instruments, which fail to adequately or equally address rights[1],[2]. This is the case in Australia, Ireland and England regarding individualised funding strategies for disability support, which aim to give effect to obligations of equality and choice under the CRPD. Australia has human rights charters in some states and a federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992 but legislative ambiguity surrounds support entitlements under its universal disability insurance scheme[3]. Ireland has explicit rights protections in its Constitution, but weak emphasis on social and economic rights, and support entitlements outside a right to be assessed. The United Kingdom has the Human Rights Act 1998 and different human rights frameworks at national and regional levels, but legislation is insufficient to ensure access to rights4. In different ways, all these countries fall short of a comprehensive rights-based design,1,3,5 encouraging discretion and value dilemmas, with differential impacts on those with weak citizenship status and advocacy capacity1,2,[4],[5]. Doubtless, other countries with individualised disability funding also face the challenges of designing rights into policy sufficiently and robustly enough to realise and safeguard the rights of people with disability.

How public policies pertaining to rights to disability support are designed and implemented (including the choice of policy instruments[6]) hence constitutes a major political, social and ethical challenge. Key questions for governments and policy researchers are: what are the strongest types of design tools and instruments to actually realise disability rights, not just articulate them? How can policy practitioners design rights-based, rights-compliant and administratively just policy for individualised disability support?

This panel will be onsite.

[1] McCausland et al. (2018) The exercise of human rights and citizenship by older adults with an intellectual disability in Ireland. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 62(10).
[2] Prince (2010) What about a disability rights act for Canada? Practices and lessons from America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Canadian Public Policy, 36(2).
[3] Foster et al. (2012) The politics of needs-based entitlement: perspectives on a proposal for a National Disability Long-term Care and Support Scheme in Australia. Social Policy and Society, 11(3).
[4] Laragy (2018) The NDIS is delivering ‘reasonable and necessary’ supports for some, but others are missing out. The Mandarin, Oct.
[5] Power et al. (2013) Active Citizenship and Disability: Implementing the Personalisation of Support.
[6] Le Gales (2016) Performance measurement as a policy instrument, Policy Studies, 37(6).

Article 19 of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) puts the onus on countries to address equal rights and choices for persons with disabilities, although the promotion and protection of rights is left to the discretion of individual countries. Unfortunately, domestic disability policy and law are often weak instruments, which fail to adequately or equally address rights. Key questions for governments and policy researchers are: what are the strongest types of design tools and instruments to actually realise disability rights, not just articulate them? How can policy practitioners design rights-based, rights-compliant and administratively just policy for individualised disability support?

Focused on individualised disability policy, the objectives of this panel are to bring critical attention to the hidden conditions, contradictions and impacts on disability rights across different policy frameworks and operating arrangements; expose and benchmark how countries approach rights obligations and the extent to which these are being met; and identify strategies to inform more comprehensive and robust policy responses to safeguard rights.

This call is open to submissions based on recent empirical data that focuses on aspects of the above panel objectives. We invite interested persons to submit an unstructured abstract (up to 300 words). Some key areas prospective presenters may wish to engage with include:

·       The content of disability support policy and legislation, including the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of domestic institutional frameworks for disability rights.

·       The inclusiveness of domestic institutional frameworks and mechanisms and safeguards for realising rights. 

·       Cross-national profiles of distributional and equality implications of domestic policy and legal frameworks pertaining to rights to disability support.  

·       The attainability of disability rights within individualised funding models.