Closing Next Steps -- Towards a United Nations Treaty on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The ways in which a society provides for people who, for one reason or another, are more socially and economically dependent throws into sharp focus the problems of equality as a political construct. The basic dilemma of social dependency is that of reconciling the responsibility of the state to ensure equality with the rights and needs of those who are dependent. The social, legal and economic policies in place at any given time in history reflect the ways that principles of justice have legit­imated differential treatment. To study the case of intellectual disability,1 therefore, is to reflect upon the legal microcosm of the struggle for social justice and the parameters of political obligation to ameliorate inequality.