Negotiating Public Spaces, Equal Access, and Disability Rights in India
In December 2017, the Supreme Court of India directed the Union Government to take adequate measures for proper and safe access to public spaces, roads, transport facilities, and movement on...
Law and Disability: Why Getting Disability Law on the University’s Curriculum Matters to Disability Rights
Today marks an important moment for the foregrounding of the rights of people with disabilities at Oxford. It is the inaugural Oxford University Disability Law and Policy Conference. This conference...
Through Two Progressive Rulings, Indian Supreme Court Bolsters Rights of the Disabled
In India, home to one of the world’s largest populations of disabled people, the Government has taken a number of concrete measures in recent times to erect a robust legal...
Law and Disability: How The UK Is Still Reinforcing The Medical View Of Disability
In 2009, when the UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), it seemed to mark a seismic shift in the attitude towards disabled people,...
Law and Disability: An Introduction to the Social Model of Disability
“To pay attention to the words we use is not to be “politically correct” but to struggle for a language which describes the denial of our human rights, locates our...
Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Law and Policy in the UK (with Marie Tidball)
Almost exactly a year ago, in January 2017, the UK Department of Education published a report by the Disabled Students Sector Leadership Group (DSSLG) which offered guidance on how universities...
First Group v Paulley: Towards Accessible and Inclusive Public Transport?
First Group Bus v Paulley is the first UK Supreme Court (or House of Lords) case on reasonable adjustments in non-employment contexts. The case, which was supported by the Equality...
India’s Mental Healthcare Bill 2016: a step in the right direction, but no more
The upper house of the Indian Parliament recently passed the Mental Healthcare Bill, 2016 (the Bill) with the aim of securing the rights of people with mental illness in accordance...
Perpetuating Discrimination: A Critical Analysis of the Legal Framework Surrounding Leprosy in India
Over several centuries, leprosy has gained notoriety as a highly contagious and incurable disease. With the advent of Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT), the World Health Organisation declared leprosy to be curable...
The Intersection of Age, Gender and Disability in the Prosecution of Sexual Violence in India
This post examines a petition made to the Indian Supreme Court by a rape victim’s mother. The petitioner avers that her daughter’s case should be tried in a court set...
Griffiths v Department of Work and Pensions: Adjusting Reasonable Adjustments
What is it that UK courts don’t get about positive treatment in discrimination law? A book could be written on the historical wrong turns they’ve been persuaded to take over...
Twenty Years on, Inclusion Remains a Distant Dream for India’s Disabled
Even as India’s principal legislation for the empowerment of the disabled, the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, (“PWD Act”) completes 20 years of...
