Progress from the Margins by Paul Van Trigt

Progress from the Margins by Paul Van Trigt

The 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities differs markedly from other forms of international human rights law: it not only protects the rights of individuals but also addresses interpersonal relations and social structures. How did the convention attain this broad reach, and what does it tell us about the histories of human rights and disability law?

Progress from the Margins is an international history of the struggle for recognition of disability rights at the global level. Paul van Trigt chronicles how people with disabilities and their allies developed their own understanding of human rights, from the emergence of disability activism in the late 1960s through the negotiation of the convention. He traces the unexpected paths by which international recognition of disability human rights emerged, showing that it is not a story of linear progress but rather one of a decades-long series of discontinuous advances. Challenging accounts that criticize the limited scope of human rights in recent decades, van Trigt highlights how disabled people and their allies transformed human rights law by emphasizing social dimensions. He foregrounds the agency of disabled people from the Global South as well as the Global North, demonstrating how they shaped their own human rights. A groundbreaking account of disability internationalism, Progress from the Margins also reflects on the prospects for a world that embraces disability.

A compelling, hugely original account of the multiple pre-histories, each with their own zigzag trajectories, ironies, and subplots, that eventually converged to make the marvelous achievement of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006 possibleDeep research, sharp insights, and captivating portraits of self-advocates and allies across the globe. -- Dagmar Herzog, author of The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century

Paul van Trigt is an assistant professor of social history at Leiden University. He is a coeditor of Marginalized Groups, Inequalities and the Post-War Welfare State: Whose Welfare? (2020).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780231219921
ISBN 10	023121992X
Title	Progress from the Margins
Author	Paul Van Trigt
Series	Columbia Studies In International And Global History
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Columbia University Press
Year published	2025-12-16
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.