Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of major legislative and policy developments affecting disabled people in the UK in the half century following the end of the Second World War, a period coterminus with that following the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) by the UK.

There are a number of reasons for providing such an overview. First, both the European Convention and the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) have to be understood in relation to the policy and legislative contexts in which they are to be applied. They intersect with existing legislation. In addition, as will be outlined in Chapter 2, a core dimension of both the Convention and the HRA concerns the obligations of public bodies to individual citizens. This makes it important to understand the nature of state action and inaction in relation to disabled children and adults over this period. Any exploration of this kind reveals, among other things, the ways in which the disabled person's relationship with the state has been characterised by a combination of essential provision conjoined with oppression and violation of their human rights. Another and important dimension for any contextualising analysis of the type envisaged in this chapter concerns the various forces that have challenged the status quo and promoted change. In the late 20th century, the Disabled People's Movement proved to be one such force and its impact is discussed at the end of the chapter.

In Chapter 2 we discuss how in the context of international conventions and covenants, human rights may be grouped into two categories: civil and political on the one hand and economic, social and cultural on the other. In this chapter, therefore, we aim to lay the groundwork for the socio-legal discussions that follow, by grouping the policy and legislative developments of the post-war period within the same categories.

Civil and political rights embrace what are sometimes known as ‘negative’ or ‘hard’ rights. Essentially the defining characteristic of such rights is that they are concerned with acts that the state should refrain from doing. Examples include the right not to be subjected to torture or abuse, discrimination, arbitrary imprisonment or unreasonable state interference with one's family or private life.