Book Review: Disability Discrimination Law in the United States, Australia and Canada
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934419401200113 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Part D: DocumentationBook Review |
Part
D: Documentation
BOOK REVIEWS
Gerard
Quinn,
Maeve McDonagh
and
Cliona Kimber, Disability Discrimination Law
in the United States, Australia
and
Canada, Dublin: Oak Tree Press 1993. ISBN
1872853 36 6, price
Ir£
19,95 (paperback) *
Gerard Quinn, Maeve McDonagh and Cliona Kimber are breaking new grounds with their
recently published comparative study Disability Discrimination Law in the United States,
Australia and Canada. I can recommend the book to all human rights scholars interested
in the potential role of the law in promoting equal opportunities for individuals with
disabilities. The book gives a highly accurate and timely description of the main equality
and anti-discrimination laws in the three countries most renowned for their progressive
disability legislation. Politicians, legal scholars and organizations of people with
disabilities repeatedly claim that the disability legislation in these three countries is
exemplary for the rest of the world. The European Parliament, for example, recently
called upon the Commission to 'investigat[e] the possibility of introducing anti-
discrimination laws based on the US model' (Resolution B3-0S80/93). But do we - and
did the European Parliament - actually know what these laws stand for? And do we know
to what extent the US, Australian and Canadian approach differ from one another? Since
the publication of Disability Discrimination
Law
there is no excuse to remain ignorant
about the contents and effectiveness of the main anti-discrimination regulations in these
three countries. The book provides the reader with basic information on the most
important US, Canadian and Australian federal laws that have been introduced to
'mainstream' people with disabilities in society. Disability Discrimination
Law
does not
only fill a gap with respect to our factual knowledge about disability legislation, but also
provides us with a wealth of inspiration as concerning the contribution the law can make
to break-down prejudice against people with disabilities.
It was only at the end of the 1960s that people with disabilities were 'discovered' as
a group that experience systematic violations of their human rights. Most often it were
persons with disabilities themselves that broke the silence around them. The majority of
problems related to disability discrimination found their root cause in the way societies
responded to people with disabilities: policies and legislation were commonly aimed at the
segregation and isolation of people with disabilities. These were sometimes accompanied
by highly discriminatory measures, such as obligatory sterilization and life-long
institutionalization. With respect to people with disabilities human societies have a long
tradition of separating individuals who do not fit and who cannot be changed to fit societal
norms. Those who opposed this view argued that society had to undergo change to
accommodate people with disabilities.
Heated debates in the General Assembly of the United Nations culminated in the
adoption of two landmark declarations (on the rights of mentally retarded persons
(Resolution 2856/XVI, 1971) and on the rights of the disabled persons (Resolution
3447/XXX, 1976».
For
the first time, people with disabilities were conferred rights,
*Aart Hendriks, NWO-research associate, Health Law Section, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam,
the Netherlands
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