Part I The concepts: The human rights framing of disability The Office of the Ombudsman in Samoa conducted interviews with people with disabilities across the island nation for its 2015 State of Human Rights Report. Photo by the Office of the Ombudsman Samoa 2.4. ACCESSIBILITY: BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS INTO THE LIFE-WORLD Giving people with disabilities power over their own lives and calling for an end to segregation will not deliver the desired results unless and until we dismantle the many barriers facing people with disabilities and build an inclusive environment. Inaccessibility is largely a legacy of ignoring the difference of disability and treating it negatively. Of course, accessibility was not a priority in the past since there was no expectation that persons with disabilities would take part in community life. The shift to the human rights model, therefore, makes accessibility an issue in a way that it wasn’t before. Importantly for our lives in the 21st century, the concept of access applies as much to the electronic environment as it does to the built environment. Article 9 of the UN CRPD is devoted entirely to the issue of accessibility. Chapter 2: Key elements of the human rights frame on disability | 27