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The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a historic achievement on many levels. Hard-fought and comprehensive, it promises to change the way the rights of persons with disabilities are understood and socially claimed by a broad range of stakeholders for generations to come. This is as true for the rights of persons with physical and sensory disabilities as it is for those with psychosocial, intellectual, and other developmental or learning disabilities.

It may be noted in this latter respect that a fairly high degree of confidence existed from the beginning of the negotiations that the final drafted treaty would offer important and significant protections for persons with physical and sensory disabilities. What was far less clear was the level of protection the new treaty would offer persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities. Such persons have long faced a particularly abusive and deeply embedded …