残障权利学术文章14-The need for a disability rights tribunal to give life to CRPD.pdfVIP

Promoting Social Change in Asia and the Pacific: The Need for a Disability Rights Tribunal to Give Life to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Prof. Michael L. Perlin Director, International Mental Disability Law Reform Project Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program New York Law School 185 West Broadway New York, NY 10013 212-431-2183 michael.perlin@ January 13, 2012 The author wishes to thank Jessica Cohn for her helpful research assistance, Yoshi Ikehara for his inspirational work on the creation of the Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the Pacific, and Heather Ellis Cucolo both for her work on the creation of the Disability Rights Information Center for Asia and the Pacific, and her extraordinarily helpful editorial suggestions and recommendations. This article is an expansion of papers presented at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, at the biennial conference of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health (July 2011), at the launch of the Centre for the Advancement of Law and Mental Health at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (June 2011), and at the Sellye Trust Lecture at the University of Auckland, Auckland, NZ (May 2011). 1 Electronic copy available at: /abstract=2002787 Introduction There is no question that the existence of regional human rights courts and commissions has been an essential element in the enforcement of international human rights in those regions of the world where such tribunals exist. In the specific area of mental disability law, there is now a remarkably robust body of case law from the European Court on Human Rights, some significant and transformative decisions from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and at least one major case from the African Commission on Human Rights. In Asia and the Pacific region, however, there is no such body.