Course date: 10 - 15 March 2014 The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria,  hosted a one-week intensive short course on Disability Rights in an African context from 10 to 15 March 2014. Venue: Graduate Centre, University of Pretoria Main Campus

About the course (2013)

This course aims to achieve the following:

• Provide an overview and explore a critical understanding of international, regional and domestic law on disability rights relevant to Africa, and develop an understanding of the limits of the law;
• Promote awareness of disability as a human rights issue and as part of human diversity;
• Encourage critical responses to the existing law by developing alternative conceptions and theories, with reference to comparative legal norms and jurisprudence;
• Develop skills and competence to advocate for legal and policy change and improved implementation of disability rights; and
• Develop skills to undertake comparative research on disability rights in Africa.

Themes of the programme (2013)

Themes of the programme are the following:

• The face of disablement
• Historical approaches to disability and the law on disability: the global and the African contexts
• Social construction of disability
• Development of disability as a human rights issue at the global level
• Development of disability as a human rights issue at the African level (regional and sub-regional)
• Development of disability as a human rights issue at the domestic level in Africa, in comparative perspective

Course Materials (2013)

The making of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Prof. Michael Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law, Project on Disability, Harvard University, USA

Course Materials (2012)

• Dr Serge Kamga
  • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol
• Dr Charles Ngwena, University of the Free State
  • Disability from a Comparative Perspective: Comparing and contrasting South Africa, USA and Canada
  • Social Construction of Disability
  • Part 1: Deconstructing the definition of 'disability' under the Employment Equity Act: Legal Deconstruction
  • Part 2: Deconstructing the definition of 'disability' under the Employment Equity Act: Legal Deconstruction

• Dr Iilze Grobbelaar-du Plessis, University of Pretoria
  • Historical Approaches to Disability and the Law on Disability: Introduction and Global Context