Restoring Voice to People with Cognitive Disabilities

This book provides a ground-breaking discussion of the human right to make decisions in our own lives.

This book is valuable to anyone interested in individual decision-making and the law, especially rights for people with cognitive disabilities. How they are granted rights under Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is an important issue to scholars and students promoting disability rights. This authoritative work will be a welcome resource.The right to make decisions is important for every individual. It allows us to express ourselves, discover our likes and dislikes, and lead our lives in the way we desire. People with cognitive disability have historically been denied this right in many different ways - sometimes informally by family members or carers, and other times formally by a courtroom or other legal authority. This book provides a discussion of the importance of decision-making and the ways in which it is currently denied to people with cognitive disability. It identifies the human right to equal recognition before the law as the key to ensuring the equal right to decision-making of people with cognitive disabilities. Looking to the future, it also provides a roadmap to achieving such equality.