The Right to Legal Capacity Under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Key Concepts

This paper is written with people with intellectual disabilities in mind, but the questions, analysis and approach may be more widely applicable to other groups as well. The aim is to examine theories of ‘personhood’ for the criteria they provide for founding and recognizing the right to legal capacity. The paper examines how current criteria of personhood and legal capacity systematically discriminate against people with intellectual disabilities in recognition and enjoyment of their legal capacity. It draws on more recent conceptions of personhood from moral and political philosophy to suggest directions for law reform that could be taken to address this barrier in law, policy and practice.