What Entitlements and for Whom? Disability, Equality and the CRPD’s Right to Access Employment for Persons with Disabilities

This thesis explores the right to access employment for persons with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It seeks to ascertain what entitlements and for whom this right entails. Given the central conceptual role disability and equality play in the Convention, this thesis explores the prevailing models of understanding of both disability and equality. After conducting a legal analysis of the CRPD’s constituency and the measures designed to safeguard and promote the realisation of the right to access employment for persons with disabilities, an interdisciplinary analysis of this text against the prevailing models of disability and equality follows. The interdisciplinary analysis proves that the CRPD does not strictly adhere to any one of the prevailing theoretical models of disability and equality. Although the CRPD has been informed by these models of disability and equality, it carries its own understanding in essence. This thesis concludes with how the CRPD’s understanding of disability and equality ultimately informs the right to access employment for persons with disabilities under the CRPD regarding this right’s entitlements and constituency.