Restoring Voice to People with Cognitive Disabilities: Realizing the Right to Equal Recognition Before the Law. This item is unavailable.Restoring Voice to People with Cognitive Disabilities: Realizing the Right to Equal Recognition Before the Law

The right to make decisions is important for every individual. It allows us to express ourselves, discover our likes and dislikes, and lead our lives in the way we desire. People with cognitive disability have historically been denied this right in many different ways - sometimes informally by family members or carers, and other times formally by a courtroom or other legal authority. This book provides a discussion of the importance of decision-making and the ways in which it is currently denied to people with cognitive disability. It identifies the human right to equal recognition before the law as the key to ensuring the equal right to decision-making of people with cognitive disabilities. Looking to the future, it also provides a roadmap to achieving such equality.

Anna Arstein-Kerslake is an academic at Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne and the Academic Convenor of the Disability Research Initiative (DRI). She founded and co-ordinates the Disability Human Rights Clinic (DHRC) at Melbourne Law School. Prior to coming to Melbourne, she held a Marie Curie Research Fellowship at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She has participated widely in consultation with governments and other bodies, including the United Kingdom Ministry of Justice, the Irish Ministry of Justice, Amnesty Ireland, Interights and the Mental Disability Advocacy Center, among others.