چکیده :
This paper explores the United Nations Convention on the rights
of persons with disabilities (CRPD) from a phenomenological perspective.
It argues for complementing the predominant juridical
approach to the CRPD with attention to the extra-juridical dimension
of the constitution of its meaning. The core argument is that
disabled people’s collectives should be recognised and admitted
as important stakeholders and contributors in the community
of interpretation that gives the CRPD its meaning. After briefly
introducing the CRPD, the first part of the paper highlights the
ubiquity of interpretation and the limits of its juridical regulation.
The second part explores some extra-juridical factors that influence
the interpretation of the CRPD. Two cases are considered:
the socially embedded materiality of the interpretive work of the
CRPD Committee; and the politics of interpretation inherent in
the CRPD’s translation between languages. The latter is backed up
by comparing the English, French, Russian and Bulgarian versions
of several CRPD provisions. In conclusion, some methodological
and programmatic inferences are drawn from the analysis. In
particular, it is argued that disabled people’s civic self-organising
is indispensable for sustaining the interpretation of the CRPD along
transformative and emancipatory lines.
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