About the workshop
The European Court of Human Rights and the European Union are slowly, if unevenly, adopting legislation and policies to include people with disabilities in broader society. Although the EU itself ratified the CRPD, many EU member states have yet to adopt domestic legislation to implement the CRPD. Recent European anti-discrimination law has proved of limited utility for people with disabilities in securing equal access to the public sphere. In addition, many European states entered reservations, understandings and declarations (RUDs) to the CRPD when they ratified, and those RUDs are now the subject of contestation with the international level. In this workshop, we will more closely examine contests between European tribunals and international bodies over the interpretation and application of international law, with a specific focus on international disability law norms within Europe by the CJEU and the ECtHR.
Further, a number of substantive areas in the CRPD are provoking high-stakes contests of legitimacy and authority between and among both international level treaty bodies, and with regional courts. The complexities and sophistication of the judicial system of the European Union offer a perfect opportunity to examine conflicts and variation arising in the legal interpretation and application of relatively new international law, the CRPD. Within Europe, multiple sources of law and policy protect people with disabilities—national legislation, European Union Directives (EAA), European Commission subsidiary organs, regional conventions, the European Disability Forum (EDF) and Council of Europe policies. International law also protects people with disabilities in Europe. In its second phase, the project will develop some normative implications both for the legitimacy of international and regional courts and for the substance of disability law. The subject matter of our proposed workshop overlaps many of Pluricourts’ core research topics, particularly: the legitimacy of international tribunals; the proper allocation of powers between different international and national lawmaking, executive, and judicial organs; the impacts of global administrative law, and best practices of international lawmaking bodies.
Themes of the two-day workshop will include:
- Medical to social model of disability: from disability studies to studying ableism
- Positive and negative rights in international disability law: limitations of the extant legal system
- Clarifying legal doctrine regarding accessibility, capacity, reasonable accommodation
- The limits of nondiscrimination law for the paradox and contradiction of dignity-based claims for support and autonomy and the limitations of extant legal systems (Bagenstos)
- The overlapping authority of European and international tribunals and the effects of this overlap for people with disabilities, as well as the tribunals
- Local vs. universal approaches to accommodations and accessibility and legal capacity and identity: reservations, understandings and declarations of Council of Europe states to the CRPD
- Contestations: Identity, ableism and authority
As we explore each other’s work in this workshop, we will also be discussing the concept of ableism and its multidisciplinary implications, exploring what a shift from disability studies to ableism studies requires. We look forward to discussing theories of inclusion, equality and the interpretation and adjudication of disability rights within the European Union and the Council of Europe with you during this workshop.
Program
Monday 12 June |
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9.45 - 10.00 Welcoming remarks
10.00 - 11.45 Session 1
Chair: Prof. Cora True-Frost, Syracuse University
- Jan Grue, University of Oslo: “The Double Bind of Social Legitimacy: On Disability and Invisible Work”.
- Pauli Rautiainen, University of Eastern Finland: "How the character of a disabled person is imagined in the world of law?”.
12.00 - 13.30 Lunch at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset)
13.30 - 15.00 Session 2
Chair: Prof. Cora True-Frost, Syracuse University College of Law
- Andrea Broderick, Maastricht University
- Lisa Waddington, Maastricht University
“Impact of the CRPD’s provisions on reasonable accommodation (in employment) on the case law of the CJEU”
- Kjersti Skarstad, Oslo New University College: "Votes count, resources decide, and we have neither”. Disabled claim-makers and representation"
17.30 Dinner at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset)
Tuesday 13 June |
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09.30 - 11.15 Session 1
Chair: Jan Grue, University of Oslo
- Cora True-Frost, Syracuse University: “Unburdening Access: Clarifying Accessibility, Reasonable Accommodation and Anti-Discrimination Rights before the ECHR”.
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Kjetil Mujezinovic Larsen, University of Oslo: "Reflections ahead of the workshop «Unburdening Access and Inclusion: European Tribunals, International Disability Law: from Disability Studies to Studying Ableism»"
11.30-13:00 Lunch at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset)
Closing remarks
Contact person
If you have any practical questions concerning the conference or the program, please contact Hanna Jarstø Ervik (hannajer@uio.no) or Anette Presesæter Endsjø (a.p.endsjo@jus.uio.no)