Doing Disability Right: A Socio-Legal Comparison of Brazil, Iceland, Ireland, and the United States.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is a treaty adopted in 2006 to address human rights for persons with disabilities. The UNCRPD advances discussions of disability by recognizing social barriers faced by persons with disabilities (PWD), highlighting needs for justice overlooked in previous human rights treaties. This paper examines efforts of four states in advancing rights of PWD. It selects two countries whose national governments have ratified the UNCRPD, Iceland and Brazil, and two countries whose national governments have not ratified the UNCRPD, Ireland and the USA, to examine whether “ratification matters” in reaching the Convention’s goals. These countries share similarities and differences that may influence human rights advancement, as well as UNCRPD decoupling. This study contrasts UNCRPD implementation with concurrent national disability laws, human development index (HDI) ranking, social welfare approaches, and population characteristics. In addition to the rights outlined in the UNCRPD, each country has laws that vary in their enforcement of equal access, anti-discrimination, and other rights for PWD that are outlined in the Convention. The variation in socioeconomic, legal, social welfare, and population characteristics of each of the countries creates noteworthy differences in the human rights status for PWD, as outlined by the UNCRPD. This paper examines how countries take a human rights-based, inclusive equality approach, and highlights areas where researchers, governments, international organizations, and individuals can focus efforts to improve the lives of persons with disabilities and enhance human rights outlined in the UNCRPD.

Country	Welfare State Type	UNCRPD Status	Human Development Index (Rank)	Population Diversity	Net Migration
United States of America	Liberal	Signatory	0.920 (11)	Diverse	High
Ireland	Christian Democrat-Liberal	Signatory	0.923 (8)	Limited	Low
Iceland	Social Democrat	Convention Ratified	0.921 (9)	Limited	Low
Brazil	Christian Democrat-Social Democrat	Convention & Protocol Ratified	0.754 (79)	Diverse	Moderate