Introduction

Social and legal challenges of the new paradigm of intellectual disability. A commitment to human rights, inclusion and equality

Abstract

This monographic issue ‘Social and legal challenges of the new paradigm of intellectual disability. A commitment to human rights, inclusion and equality’, has its origin in the framework of a multidisciplinary research project involving researchers from three universities, namely: the University of Deusto, the Comillas Pontifical University and the Ramon Llull University. The research, whose results are presented here, focuses on the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities, and takes an interdisciplinary look at the different realities and difficulties posed by the so-called social and rights model of intellectual disability, interpreted in the light of human rights, from an interdisciplinary perspective. The adoption of the New York Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006 woke up national legislators from their long lethargy and made visible the legislative neglect in which the rights of persons with disabilities had been submerged until then. Thus, the idea of disability linked to care and health needs, reflecting a medical model of disability, has given way to the social paradigm and disability rights.