My birthday in Hyderabad

On the 8th August I took a day off to relax and celebrate my birthday with Amita Dhanda. My Hyderabad stay has been a very intensive work visit with 8 lectures in 16 days. This evening we went to Restaurant Fusion 9 where we spent a nice, relaxing night with good food and wine.

Lecture at NALSAR on patents and innovations

On August 7 I gave a lecture for 4th year students at NALSAR on patents and innovation. This lecture gave an introduction to how scientific discoveries and technological innovations are made and why current patent laws are problematic in the light of the research and development process. Law students learn about legal issues of intellectual property but they do not learn about the processes of research and innovation.

The history of electricity, the Human Genome Project and current patenting/licencing practices in the field of pharmacology were used to illustrate the need for a paradigm shift in order to protect intellectual property in a fair and just way for both the inventor and the potential beneficiaries.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, India Considers Work on Children with Disabilities

As an unexpected outcome of the joint presentation by Amita Dhanda and myself at the International Child Rights Consultation the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights consider a focussed work on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Shanta Sinha, chairperson of the Commission (on the picture) became interested in the potential of the CRPD to advonce child rights for all children after listening to our presentation. Amita will meet Ms Shanta Sinha in Delhi in September to further discuss the planned actions.

We are most happy to learn about this development as in our lecture our aim was to convince participants of the Consultation that the way CRPD deals with the rights of the child shall have a consequence on the general child rights discourse and on the nterpretation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well. CRPD is much more child centered than CRC and provides with age and disability appropriate assistance as a right to exercise the evolving capacities while CRC mentions no right to support.

Lecture on Paradigm Shifts

On Tuesday I gave a lecture for jurisprudence students at NALSAR Law University, Hyderabad. I introduced the Kuhnian theory of paradigm shifts through two examples from the history of physics: the Copernican revolution and the emergence of quantum physics. After the lecture a discussion followed on how the lessons learned from the history of science can be used to understand the progress in social sciences, humanities and legal theory. The discussion also addressed advocacy implications of the Kuhnian framework: how proponents of a new human rights paradigm can help the new model win. The example was the new paradigm of legal capacity with the right to support in decision making in the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Speaking Truth to Power: lecture on human rights defenders at NALSAR

Today I gave a 45 minutes lecture for administrative law students at NALSAR Law University on the institution of human rights defenders. After sharing my personal story of how I became a human rights defender, I was talking on the challenges, needs and successes human rights advocates face on a day to day basis. The lecture was followed by another 45 minutes of lively discussions, covering as wide issues as the responsibility of international organisations, legal capacity of persons with disabilities, human rights and democracy, to mention but a few.

Bangalore: National Trust Act Consultation

Last Friday evening Amita Dhanda and I were flying to Bangalore to participate as resource persons in the Southern Consultation on the National Trust Act amendment needed to bring that law in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The meeting was held at the United Theological Centre and was attended by care givers, self-advocates and professionals working with people with intellectual and psychosocial (mental health) disabilities.

After the opening session care givers, professionals and self-advocates gave presentations. Self-advocates articulated their demand for their rights being recognised in order to live a dignified life of their choice. Family members expressed concerns about abuses of people with disabilities. Psychiatrist Srinivasa Murthy in his presentation appraised CRPD as a progressive instrument except for article 12, which was a surprising remark as the consultation was expected to focus on the issues emerging from the obligations under that article and because the recognition of legal capacity on an equal basis with others and the right to support in decision making have been seen by the international communities of both people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities as the most important breakthrough in CRPD. He proposed that the consultation should look rather into the issues of education, rehabilitation and other articles in CRPD than legal capacity.

The somewhat unexpected and chaotic situation was saved by the chairperson of the National Trust, Ms Poonam Natrajan, who explained why these consultations were convened, why the consultation paper was drafted and encouraged the participants to deal with the questions formulated in our consultation paper.

After the other presentations Amita and I spoke rather about our motivations that guided us when drafting the paper than on the document itself, which had been sent to the participants prior to the meeting to enable them to prepare for a substantive discussion on the matter of legal capacity with the right to access support to make own decisions. We emphasised that the deprivation of legal capacity exposes persons with disabilities to exploitation and abuse rather than protect them. Also, deprivation of legal capacity deprives people of opportunities to develop capabilities. Legal capacity is a presumption of law and not an evidenced fact and in the absence of that presumption none of the other rights can be exercised.

Our presentation was very well received by the self-advocates and many of the family members understodd the paradigm shift in article 12 better. There were small group discussions on the questions originally proposed by us in the consultation paper.

The group of self-advocates clearly indicated that they were small in number at this consultation and urged the organisers to involve them more meaningfully in the future. They voted for the recognition of legal capacity with the right to support and gave concrete examples on how they in fact use their capabilities. The group of family members rightly tried to find the delicate balance between protection and empowerment and started to seriously think about the new paradigm. The group of professionals was the least capable one, they were not a group as director of Basic Needs India, Mr DN Naidu mentioned in his intervention. They were unable to appoint a spokesperson for the group and to reach consensus on any of the questions.

Mr JP Gadkari, president of the national family organisation PARIVAAR concluded the meeting with emphasising that it was a most educational consultation and that further learning is needed.

Amita and I arrived back in Hyderabad on Sunday night.

Paradigms in Physics and Psychiatry: Lecture at the Hyderabad Central University

On the 31st July I had my lecture on paradigms in physics and psychiatry at the Department of Philosophy of the Hyderabad Central University. The lecture argued that the currently dominating bilogical paradigm of psychiatry has its roots in the Newtonian paradigm of physics and that this outdated paradigm, in combination with the legal authority to deprive people with mental disorders of their fundamental rights can easily result in inhuman situations. The lecture and the subsequent discussion called for a challenge to the hegemony of this paradigm enabling competing paradigms co-exist to provide with a more humane mental health care.