Introduction

As the first human rights treaty of the twenty-first century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was drafted in the midst of a broader debate about the role of the UN and, in particular, the role of existing mechanisms in monitoring human rights violations. Given this context, the drafters of the CRPD sought to push the boundaries of what an international human rights instrument could achieve, and the resulting Convention creates unique links between national implementation and monitoring and international oversight of the monitoring process. In response to the CRPD (and in some cases, prior to its adoption), many countries have developed national disability strategies that set out how people with disabilities are to be included in domestic society as fully participating citizens through measures to improve access to education, employment, transport, housing, income, personal support, etc. The CRPD encouraged the development of these strategies and set itself as a blueprint for domestic action plans designed to promote and protect the rights of people with disabilities.

As a result, this book undertakes a global study of such national disability strategies (including the perspectives of developing and developed countries) in order to identify success factors in bringing the Convention to bear at the grassroots level. This introduction will first set out the scope and purpose of the book and its contribution to existing knowledge on the CRPD and the development of national disability strategies. Second, it will give an overview of the content of the book and sketch its main arguments. Finally, it will describe the methodological approach taken in conducting this research in order to set the boundaries of the arguments that are made throughout the text.