Disabled People’s Mobilization Around a Human Rights Approach to Enhance Their Participation in Law and Policy Making in Iceland

The right to have a say in decisions that affect one’s life is a core human right and a key emphasis of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Securing this right serves to empower disabled people and establish their position as “experts” in matters that affect their lives. This chapter examines how the CRPD and the human rights approach to disability that it embodies have served as a catalyst for the adoption of a new approach by disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) to putting pressure on the authorities to engage in a more robust way with DPOs in the development of laws and policies, as called for by the Convention. It draws on the example of the process leading up to the adoption of new core disability service legislation in Iceland, which saw the emergence of the DPOs’ use of the CRPD, as well as the General Comments by the CRPD Committee, as a tool to effectively advance the rights of persons with disabilities. This new strategy resulted in key changes to the legislation at the last stages of consultation.