The United Kingdom: Asymmetrical challenges to implementing the CRPD

Equality law in the UK is the dominant prism through which disability is addressed. Countless examples across the UK demonstrate how disabled people’s rights cannot be fully realized unless equality law is delivered in conjunction with the human rights-based approach outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Since the UK ratified the CRPD in 2009, efforts to maximize the transformative potential of the CRPD have been driven from the bottom-up through careful advocacy and political campaigns focused on securing rights for disabled people through the devolved governments in light of the central government’s general apathy for human rights. Sectoral laws and policies have ensured and promoted some specific rights in different areas of disability but these are generated predominantly by the subnational governments. The focus of this contribution is the extent to which the UK’s constitutional framework has shaped implementation of the CRPD.