European Legal Systems and Disability Rights

For several reasons, Europe is a particularly significant region as concerns the implementation of the rights of persons with disabilities (different abilities). First, it includes two different legal systems that are relevant to disability rights, that is, the European Union (‘EU’) and the Council of Europe. Whereas the EU has a wider focus on the development of a ‘closer union’ based on the common market, the Council of Europe focuses more specifically on human rights. Second, the EU itself entails a complex set of relations between the Union as an international organisation and its Member States, which concluded the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a mixed agreement. This contribution argues that, in a human rights context reinforced by the foreseeable accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights, the pace of the development of disability rights depends on the political will of the EU Member State governments, rather than that of the EU institutions.