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The recent UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides a powerful vision of the opportunities and support which should be available to intellectually disabled people and their families, based on a principled commitment to equal citizenship. When ratified nationally, this wide‐ranging Convention has the force of law. Nevertheless there is a long road to travel in securing its successful implementation. Looking across different aspects of the Convention (concerned for example with education, community living or employment) we can identify three common ‘building blocks’ for progress, focused respectively on strengthening self‐determination, promoting mainstream inclusion and providing personalised support. Experience in many countries of the ‘North’ suggests 12 key elements in national and local strategies to address these three requirements. It also points to the need for active partnership between civil society organisations, government and the current service system in which managers and other professional staff can play an important catalytic role. One priority is to invest in developing the capacity for the whole‐system leadership required to bring together the other 12 elements of strategy so as to create a virtuous spiral of positive change. We need to find effective ways of sharing experience across countries on how all this can best be done.

This paper explores the health rights of prisoners as defined in international law, and the mechanisms that have been used to ensure the rights of persons in detention to realise the highest attainable standard of health. It examines this right as articulated within United Nations and regional human rights treaties, non‐binding or so‐called soft law instruments from international organisations and the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies. It explores the use of economic, social and cultural rights mechanisms, and those within civil and political rights, as they engage the right to health of prisoners, and identifies the minimum legal obligations of governments in order to remain compliant with human rights norms as defined within the international case law. In addressing these issues, this article adopts a holistic approach to the definition of the highest attainable standard of health. This includes a consideration of adequate standards of general medical care, including preventative health and mental health services. It also examines the question of environmental health, and those poor conditions of detention that may exacerbate health decline, disease transmission, mental illness or death. The paper examines the approach to prison health of the United Nations human rights system and its various monitoring bodies, as well as the regional human rights systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Based upon this analysis, the paper draws conclusions on the current fulfilment of the right to health of prisoners on an international scale, and proposes expanded mechanisms under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment to monitor and promote the health rights of prisoners at the international and domestic levels.

Purpose: Researchers and advocates alike have noted that persons with disabilities and older persons are the two groups most marginalized by neoliberal economic policies and therefore could come together as a broad-based movement against the roll back of their rights. Yet, these two groups fail to collaborate, and instead compete against one another for an ever-shrinking pool of benefits. This chapter explores the barriers to their collaboration within the context of structural adjustment in Jamaica.

Methods/Approach: The author engages in a critical analysis of neoliberalism's effect on the advocacy strategies of the disability and older persons' movements in Jamaica based on 32 semi-directed depth interviews, participant observation of numerous events, and a survey of media written by local advocates.

Findings: The disability movement makes claims on behalf of their members by focusing on the potential returns that society will gain by providing the opportunities that will make young persons with disabilities productive employees over their lifetime. The older persons' movement advocates by portraying themselves as “vibrant” and worthy of social investment because of the contributions they make. Both of these arguments for inclusion are also exclusionary. The disability movement excludes older persons as potential contributors and the older persons' movement similarly excludes persons with disabilities.

Implications: The only way neoliberalism will successfully be rolled back and universal rights returned is if the disability movement and older persons' movements build an alliance that is more inclusive, including of one another, by rejecting the language of investment and productivity, and instead focus on rights and inherent dignity.

In 2014, Japan ratified the CRPD, which spurred to the development of domestic laws; however, the education section of the Convention does not clarify how to educate children with disabilities in inclusive education. Thus, while the global inclusive education goal advocated by UNESCO and other bodies concerns education for all, inclusive education in Japan is seen as education for children with disabilities, and the philosophies and practices are very different. Therefore, this chapter introduces the policies and current practices of inclusive education in Japan and discusses the possibilities for school education reform from the perspective of real inclusive education.

This chapter explores the relationship between disability identity, civil rights, and the law. Twenty-five years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the question remains why disability rights legislation does not go far enough toward addressing access, stigma, and discrimination issues. People with disabilities have found empowerment from disability rights laws, but these laws are also restrictive because they define people in relation to medical aspects of their disabilities and narrowly define society’s obligation for inclusion. The successes and failures of disability rights laws are an important contribution to the study of conceptions of difference.

The legal system comprises one of the greatest tools for people with disabilities, in order to ensure and protect their fundamental rights. The present study aimed to focus on the scrutiny of the legal system of the Republic of Cyprus. More specifically, the focus was placed on those laws that refer to the employability of people with disabilities, aiming to present the extent to which disability discrimination at work is prevented in the Republic of Cyprus.

A brief presentation of the laws employed on the prevention of disability discrimination at work worldwide is made; then, a presentation follows on the specific laws employed in the Republic of Cyprus.

The conditions in Cyprus are quite similar compared to the international standards. Cyprus has already introduced numerous laws and regulations regarding the prevention of disability discrimination at work; also, a code of good practice and guidance against disability discrimination at work has been published. However, regardless of the differences between legislation in various countries, the importance of establishing new laws and regulations depends on the extent to which they find application in each society. Therefore, there is an imperative need to set up a national mechanism to monitor the application of these laws and regulations, in order to ensure that discrimination at work is prevented in practice and not only in theory (meaning the establishment of new laws).

The findings of this study are useful for policy makers regarding issues of disability discrimination at work for people with disabilities in the Republic of Cyprus.

This chapter presents a research method for operationalizing a human rights approach with children with disability in developing countries that confronts the tension between a universal human rights discourse and local knowledge and customs. This research was undertaken in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Through methods of data collection, analysis of data and the dissemination of findings, the focus was on utilizing human rights concepts and ideas in a way that enabled the local meanings and experiences of children to be re-interpreted against the Articles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Findings could then be presented in a manner that communicated effectively with governments and local and global organizations, while also honouring the particular experiences of children with disability. Such an approach is, of course, subject to critique and ongoing adaptation.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

The chapter presents the similarities and the differences between the different case studies reported in the book and suggests some conclusion on the impact of COVID-19 on policies and practices devoted to persons with cognitive disabilities from a macro, meso and micro point of view. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has made people with disabilities, and particularly with intellectual ones, even more invisible, since their rights have been consistently under-represented in the different national contexts. Persons with intellectual disabilities have been considered objects of protection and this overprotective stance turns into an increasing process of institutionalisation, segregation and familiarisation of care. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has brought into light the limits of the implementation of the UN Convention and of the EU Strategy, but the book and the emerging epistemic community, in the framework of public sociology, contribute to support the rights of all persons, with or without disabilities, in public welfare policies in Europe.