The indivisibility of human rights and decision-making by, with and for adults with cognitive disabilities

The thesis argues that article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – the right to legal capacity on an equal basis with others – requires both support for decision-making and decision-making by substitutes as a last resort, to uphold the indivisible human rights of adults with cognitive disability. In doing so, it applies a novel interpretive lens to the convention to explain how the values of autonomy, dignity and equality are to be understood to ensure the civil, social, political, economic and cultural personhood of all adults with cognitive disability