The domestication of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Domestic legal status of the CRPD and relevance for court judgments

This chapter reflects on jurisdiction-specific approaches to the domestication of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), considering in particular the domestic legal status of the CRPD and the relevance of that legal status for case law. The chapter explores four dimensions of the CRPD’s legal status: direct effect; indirect interpretative effect (where the CRPD influences the interpretation given to domestic law); use of the CRPD because of commitments to another international treaty; and absence of domestic legal status. With the exception of the first category, all dimensions can potentially present themselves in legal systems which tend towards the monist approach as well as in those which tend towards the dualist approach. The chapter discusses examples of relevant case law and reflects on similarities and differences emerging from a comparison of that case law