The world’s biggest Disability Law Summer School will take place in Galway this month.
Focusing on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, this is the 10th International Disability Law Summer School hosted by NUI Galway’s Centre for Disability Law and Policy.
It will last from 18 June until 22 June.
Dr Eilionóir Flynn, Director of NUI Galway’s Centre for Disability Law and Policy said: “Like all of us, disabled people hold many different and intersecting identities.
“They have also participated in many different movements for social change, including the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the LGBTQI movement, migrant justice, ethnic minority and refugee movements.
“This year’s summer school will explore how intersectional approaches to disability rights can achieve greater social justice for all.”
Professor Theresia Degener, Chairperson of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Committee (pictured above) will deliver a keynote address at the Summer School.
Other speakers will include academics, practitioners, activists, members of different UN agencies and policy makers from around the world. Many of the speakers have been directly and actively engaged in drafting and implementing the UN Convention.
Over 220 delegates from over 50 countries are registered to attend the Summer School, including persons with disabilities, civil society groups, as well as disability activists, feminist activists, older people’s advocates, children’s rights activists, lawyers, policy makers and policy analysts.
The Co-Director of the Summer School, Dr Maria Laura Serra, said: “We live in a globalized world with a globalized human rights crisis. The combined effect of discrimination on the basis of disability on women, migrants, older persons and children has had and continues to have devastating consequences for the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in both the public and private spheres.
“The 10th summer school will examine creative advocacy in terms of intersectionality from around the world. It will learn from advocates in academia, members of UN agencies, NGOs, persons with lived experience, policymakers and other stakeholders. It will facilitate participants to think in a more inclusive way, about all the different oppressions that women, older persons and children with disabilities are facing in their daily life.”
