Assumptions of Decision-Making Capacity: The Role Supporter Attitudes Play in the Realisation of Article 12 for People with Severe or Profound Intellectual Disability

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was the first legally binding instrument explicitly focused on how human rights apply to people with disability. Amongst their obligations, consistent with the social model of disability, the Convention requires signatory nations to recognise that “ . . . persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life” and mandates signatory nations to develop “… appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disability to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity”.