The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

This volume brings together two important contemporary social movements: human rights and disability rights. It analyses the global struggle to realize equality, dignity, and comprehensive human and civil rights for persons with intellectual disabilities. In twenty original chapters, distinguished contributors from a range of disciplines address the latest international developments in the field. These include international human rights standards and other sources of legal protection, nondiscrimination laws and the economics of equality, preventative technology, remediation and habilitation, and lifestyle choices and autonomy.

Professor Stanley Sholom Herr taught at the University of Maryland School of Law from 1983 until his death in September 2001. In addition to his work in public policy, he was a Switzer Distinguished Research Fellow of the National Insitiute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Schell Senior Research Fellow at the Yale Law School Schell Center for International Human Rights, and President of the American Association on Mental Retardation. Lawrence O. Gostin is Professor of Law at Georgetown University, Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities. He has contributed to U.S. government advisory boards in several areas of public health. Harold Hongju Koh is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, where he has taught since 1985. From 1998 to 2001, he served in the U.S. as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Guggenheim and Century Foundations.