Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In accordance with the biopsychosocial model and the ICF, the Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities adopted on December 13, 2006, by the General Assembly of the
United Nations resolution (hereafter Convention) recognizes that:
Disability is an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between
persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders
their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others … [and
hopes for:] (a) Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the free-
dom to make one's own choices, and independence of persons; (b) Non-discrimination;
(c) Full and effective participation and inclusion in society; (d) Respect for difference
and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;
(e) Equality of opportunity; (f) Accessibility; (g) Equality between men and women;
(h) Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the
right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities. (UN 2006, Preamble)
By founding a concept of disability marked by the international value of human rights, the
universal value of the Convention seems to have heeded the wishes of the late Irving Zola
regarding the need for a shared approach to policies on disability at the international level.
From this perspective: “human rights are applicable to everyone, and to everyone equally,
independently of all contingent differences between people—race, religion, language, cul-
ture, geographical location, and so on, including disability” (Bickenbach 2009, p. 1112). The
unique criterion to be recognized as a beneficiary of a human right is, precisely, that of the
human race. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that such a perspective questions several practical
issues concerning its application to different human cultures. The concept of disability and
functioning are socially constructed, or rather, the meaning of both terms is enriched with
different values and denote cross-cultural differences:
What it means to be disabled, in short, fundamentally includes what it means to be
viewed as disabled
by others, and this is contingent on features of one's society, system
of economic exchange, culture, language and many other things besides. (Bickenbach
2009, p. 1112)
Thus, risks of incommunicability or mutual misunderstanding between individuals and
institutions from different social, cultural, and political contexts are anything but unre-
alistic. The possibility of such incommunicability is manifested, at a theoretical level, in
the opposition of two different radicalisms: on the one hand, the absolutism of rights and,
on the other, cultural relativism. For political reasons the Convention avoided adopting
clearly defined terms or excessively binding statements in defining disability. Nonetheless,
it seems clear that the Convention is based on the ICF from an epidemiological and an
operational viewpoint. Indeed, the ICF and the Convention share
The core idea […] that disability is the outcome of, often extremely complex and little
understood, interactive relationships between intrinsic features of the person (which, in
the ICF are understood as aspects of the person's health state) and features of the overall
context in which person lives, works, and interacts with others. Environmental factors,
the constituent elements of this context, are not only natural and physical, but also atti-
tudinal, structural, political, social and cultural. (Bickenbach 2009, p. 1121)
Just taking into account the disability concepts of complex interaction, claimed by the ICF
(2001) and the Convention (UN 2006) and more recently by the
World Report on Disability
