Legal research and disability studies: towards a transdisciplinary and unitary human rights-based approach

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze the importance of asking how disability studies can improve legal research and how strictly legal research can contribute to the development of disability studies. Attention will be paid to the intersection between legal studies and disability studies. It will analyze the reality in which we live, where the medical model of disability is still prevalent, and the critical issues and prospects after nearly twenty years since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the UN General Assembly. The research methods used concern an analysis of reality, giving voice to experiences of people with disabilities and their family members, family caregivers, siblings, and a comparative analysis with a connection to disability studies. The results will highlight how the approach to disability must be based on human rights and respect for human dignity. The results will also highlight how legal studies focus on the technical elements specific to the field in which they operate, taking sociological elements into consideration, and enhancing the transdisciplinary nature of the approach. The objective pursued is the full participation of the individual who is no less entitled to rights and responsibilities than other subjects.