Breaking the link between poverty and disability: Re-purposing human rights in the 21st century

This chapter summarises the extensive literature on the link between poverty and disability._It analyses the contribution of human rights doctrine in revealing these links and reversing them._It concludes that human rights doctrine did not meaningfully interrogate the social and economic exclusion of persons with disabilities until very recently._A key breakthrough was the concept of ‘inclusive equality’ embedded in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the addition of explicit references to disability in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015)._The main conclusion of the chapter is that both human rights and the SDGs must work well together to bring about meaningful change.