Duties of persons with disabilities under the African disability rights protocol: a sceptical argument

Abstract

Although the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disability 2018 (‘African disability rights protocol’) is inspired by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 (CRPD), it departs from it by grounding disability rights in an African philosophy of human rights. It achieves this in various ways, particularly by assigning duties to people with disabilities, which is generally uncharacteristic of disability human rights discourse. This article explores what the allocation of these duties implies for people with disabilities. It argues that whilst such recognition may uphold the equal humanity and belonging of people with disabilities, the African disability rights protocol is not sufficiently attentive to duties owed to them by other individuals. Given the widespread exclusions and injustices faced by disabled people across Africa, it is argued that the priority should be individual duties to (rather than of) people with disabilities. The significance of individual duties to people with disabilities is not only underemphasized by the African disability rights protocol but is insufficiently addressed by the CRPD and under-theorized in disability justice literature. A duty-based approach remains a significant yet an unexplored approach to disability justice