Truth Commissions on Disability Institutions: Towards a Disability Truth and Repair Framework

Abstract

Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability provides for the right to live independently and be included in the community. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities clarifies that this right requires States parties to undertake deinstitutionalization that extends to providing 'remedies, reparations, and redress' for institutionalization, including through establishment of truth commissions. In this article I argue for the development of a Disability Truth and Repair Framework to support future design and critical evaluation of truth commissions on disability institutions. I map out a series of conceptual and practical considerations that can inform the framework, by reference to philosophical scholarship on moral repair and critical disability studies scholarship on institutions. Considerations include temporal, familial, and cultural dynamics of institutionalization, connections between institutionalization and other dynamics of oppression and settler colonialism, professional, government, and charity power, and diverse lived experience and accessibility needs.

Keywords: disability, institutionalization, truth-telling, truth commissions, right to truth, reparations, repair, disability human rights, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities