Part I The concepts: The human rights framing of disability global civil society advocacy towards an equality framing on disability. Indeed, this had implications for the constant framing and re-framing of disability at the international level. However, as recently as the United Nations World Programme of Action on Disability in 1982, the traditional focus of disability policy was on prevention and rehabilitation. The equality agenda, in as much as it featured, was generally tacked on as an extra consideration. This traditional narrative changed dramatically with the UN General Assembly Resolution on the equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities (1993) which – as the title suggests – focused almost exclusively on civil rights and equality. A major impetus for this shift at the global level was the pioneering legislation in the United States and elsewhere. This phenomenon of ‘borrowing’ at the international level from major innovations at the domestic level also affected regional organisations. The Council of Europe, for example, adopted a major set of policy guidelines for its Member States in 1992 that were based almost exclusively on an equality frame.28 Likewise, the European Union signalled its firm policy adoption of the equality of opportunities model in 1996.29 This early shift to the equality model – an essential element of the social model of disability – in the 1990s gave civil society in every corner of the world a common language to discuss disability. This helped strengthen the emerging global disability rights movement and enabled it to connect across nations and regions. It led to a feeling of solidarity and a willingness to cooperate to achieve tangible results. It also meant that, when the time came, civil society organisations were ready, willing and able to make a leading contribution to drafting the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While it employs an equality frame, the Convention goes broader to encompass a fuller human rights model (in the sense understood by Degener above). This is reflected in article 1 which states that the primary purpose of the Convention is to: [P]romote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities. This combined social model/human rights model has clear implications in how one views disability. The preamble to the Convention calls on States to recognise that: [D]isability is an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.30 As such, the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities involves identifying and removing socially constructed barriers that stand in the way of the enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities. What the human rights framing of disability brings to light is the extent to which persons with disabilities were, in the past, treated as ‘objects’ to be minded, cared for and pitied, usually at the convenience of others. While the medical model marked people apart, it was the laws, public policies and a myriad of spending programs that actually kept people apart. It is this legacy that must now be tackled. The human rights model puts those laws, public policies and spending programs front and centre of any agenda for change. It also ensures that persons with disabilities are treated as ‘subjects’ capable of taking charge of their own lives and with an equal right to do so. It means treating people with disabilities equally with others. 28 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Recommendation No. R (92)6 on a Coherent Policy for People with Disabilities, 9 April 1992. 29 European Commission, Communication of the Commission on Equality of Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities: A New Community Disability Strategy, COM(96) 406, 30 July 1996. 30 Preambular para. e. Chapter 1: The human rights re-framing of disability | 13