New Legal Capacity Laws and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: An Overview of Five Countries in Europe

Abstract:

Several state parties to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) undertook recent revisions of their national legal capacity laws. These revisions aim to promote the autonomy of persons with disabilities as set forward by the CRPD. At the same time, the CRPD Committee calls for the abolishment of all forms of substitute decision-making through its first General Comment on Article 12 of the Convention.

The authors thus describe the main components of new legal capacity laws of Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Switzerland and assess those in light of the General Comment. They argue that none of these countries completely abolished substitute decision-making regimes and align with the views that a more realistic interpretation should be given to the CRPD. Such interpretation would provide better guidance for countries in the implementation of Article 12.