The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Beginning to Examine the Implications for Canadian Lawyers' Professional Responsibilities

The United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities^ (hereafter CRPD or Convention) should herald a new epoch in way persons with disabilities are treated throughout world community. The entire panoply of ramifications of this Convention, purpose of which is promote, protect and ensure full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity, (Article 1) is as yet unascertainable. However, States Parties must take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination by any person, organization or private enterprise (Article 4 (1) (e)), among other obligations. For self-governing legal profession, primary responsibility for ensuring compliance falls to its individual members, its law societies and its federations. This mission is critical in order to demonstrate that lawyers avoid discriminatory customs and practices (Article 4(l)(c)) and it is incumbent upon profession as it continues to fulfil its essential role as an unwritten pillar of Canadian constitution in upholding rule of This article provides a small contribution to extensive self-examination mandated by Convention for bar. It offers a brief overview of CRPD in order to introduce its rich array of novel measures. The paper spotlights principles of professional ethics which are implicated by Convention and identifies other areas of governance and policy wherein lawyers should consider its effects. The article then endeavours to articulate features of moral dimension of legal professionalism which must be reconfigured in wake of Convention, The exhortations of CRPD for lawyers seem daunting, but prescribed reforms are both socially responsible and long overdue; The concentration herein will be on persons with long-term mental or intellectual (Article 1), who experience discrimination and stigma most acutely, as exemplified by readiness of society and legal system to intrude upon their autonomy, remove their capacity for decision-making, permit forcible interventions and confine them to live in conditions of poverty (Preamble (t)). However, most of following comments would apply to other persons with disabilities who have physical or sensory impairments (Article 1). Introducing CRPD: An Innovative and Ambitious International Human Rights Treaty The reach of international human rights law has been vastly extended since United Nations adopted Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, recognizing the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of human family (Preamble, para. I). (2) Kate Parlett celebrated its impact, having transformed rhetoric and declarations of human rights into legal rights and obligations, indeed occupy a more permanent place in international law and to form part of general international law. (3) Growth in rights protection occurred too slowly for persons with disabilities prior to Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities coming into effect in 2007. The CRPD, first twenty-first century human rights treaty, was negotiated rapidly, emerging in less than five years from inception of deliberations of an Ad Hoc Committee in 2002. The Convention has been enthusiastically received by persons with disabilities, an outlook in keeping with the highest level of participation by representatives of civil society, overwhelmingly that of persons with disability and disabled persons organizations, of any human rights convention in history. (4) This substantial involvement in formulation of CRPD by persons with disabilities has influenced its content and will shape ensuing processes of implementation and monitoring. Whether CRPD creates new rights or merely connects general international human rights law to people with disabilities has been debated, but no one doubts that its cumulative effect should be enormous. …

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