The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from a Qatari Human Rights Perspective

Abstract

For a long time disability was considered a question of social development, outside the responsibilities of official human rights institutions. Over the last three decades this approach has evolved, and disability is now viewed in terms of human rights, a change that has received important support from the United Nations and its Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of 2006. Qatar ratified the CRPD in 2008. The main purposes of the CRPD are "to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity". The CRPD embodies the philosophy of the social model of disability; that is, the idea that an individual's disability is largely the product of a social order in which someone who is different does not fit in. This is clear in the Convention's definition of disability and in its guiding principles of non-discrimination, universal accessibility and legal capacity, inclusion and diversity. In its journey towards implementing the CRPD, Qatar will likely face challenges common to all signatory countries: the philosophical questioning of the Convention's theoretical framework, as well as objections from traditional legal theorists to the Convention's doctrine. The challenges to the theoretical basis of the Convention will likely converge around philosophical doubts regarding adopting the social model of disability as a new paradigm and concerns that such a model is impossible to implement. The doctrinal legal objections are most often linked to the relative difficulty of applying international mandates to domestic laws. In addition, the rights of persons with disabilities are often considered economic, social and cultural rights, which are provided for depending on the resources actually available; those rights are often not viewed as individual, civil and political rights under the human rights statute, independent of the fact that they need an action or an abstention from the state. Finally, traditional legal doctrine holds that individual legal capacity requires full mental competence as a pre-requisite. The CRPD, instead, advances a model of assisted capacity; this means that a degree of legal capacity is recognized in each individual according to his or her condition. The individual receives assistance in making decisions, while in the classical doctrine the individual is substituted altogether by a guardian. Other challenges to full CRPD implementation are more specific to Qatar. Qatar has traditionally conceived disability as a medical problem of the individual, who is given support and rehabilitation. The legal framework approaches disability from that perspective, and the medical model seems to be deeply rooted in Qatar. Disability is presented as a problem of individuals with special needs that must be corrected, rectified or tempered by providing as much support as possible. This is not the model of the Convention, and Qatari legislation must be brought into the fold of the social and human rights model in order to be compliant with the CRPD's mandate.