In 2010, the EU became a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD is a progressive human rights convention, which seeks to tailor already existing human rights to the situation of people with disabilities and imposes wide-ranging obligations on States Parties. Following the conclusion (ratification) of the CRPD, the EU is bound by the Convention to the extent of its competences, including in the field of non-discrimination (an area of shared competence with the Member States).

Professor Lisa Waddington and Dr. Andrea Broderick have written a major thematic report on behalf of the European Commission and European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination. The report is entitled Disability law and the duty to reasonably accommodate beyond employment: A legal analysis of the situation in EU member states. The report was published in 2016 by the European Commission.

The report analyses the situation in the 28 EU Member States with regard to obligations to provide reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities outside the field of employment. More specifically, the report outlines the duties contained in Member States’ laws and policies with respect to reasonable accommodation in the areas covered by the 2008 proposal of the European Commission for a directive to protect people from discrimination on the ground of disability, as well as discrimination on a number of other grounds. The 2008 proposal addresses the fields of social protection, including social security, healthcare and social housing; education; and access to, and supply of, goods and services, including housing.

If adopted, the Commission’s 2008 proposal for a new non-discrimination directive would contribute towards filling the existing lacuna between EU disability equality law and the CRPD. However, the material scope of the CRPD remains much broader than the scope of the 2008 proposal and the Employment Equality Directive (Directive 2000/78, which prohibits inter alia employment-related discrimination on the ground of disability). This means that EU Member States which have ratified the CRPD will be obliged to prohibit disability discrimination in fields beyond those covered by EU equality law. Those EU Member States which have ratified the CRPD will therefore have significant obligations, in terms of prohibiting and combatting discrimination on the ground of disability. This report is therefore timely in analysing the existing situation in the 28 Member States and in drawing conclusions on the relevant legal and policy issues. The report can be downloaded at: ec.europa.eu.

 This blog is published on Law Blogs Maastricht 
 written by Lisa Waddington and Andrea Broderick.