The Law Library of Congress recently published a multinational report, Access to Information for Persons with Disabilities in Selected Jurisdictions, which provides individual surveys of selected jurisdictions and gives an overview of their legislation on access to information for persons with disabilities. Providing access constitutes one of the human rights protections specifically guaranteed under article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Our research surveyed 27 jurisdictions, namely, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Congo (Democratic Republic), Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
This report surveys how the rights of persons with disabilities are protected, notably, if a jurisdiction’s constitution expressly protects persons with disabilities. It further describes the rights to information, in particular legal information, access to justice, and culture, and includes current legislative proposals as they concern persons with disabilities. The report also surveys which jurisdictions offer publicly funded libraries that specifically serve the blind and visually impaired.
A majority of the jurisdictions surveyed are parties to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled and the jurisdictions have adopted legislation and procedures to make convenience copies of copyrighted material available to persons with disabilities. Several jurisdictions are also part of networks facilitating such access, such as the Accessible Books Consortium, or provide access to Bookshare.
The report is accompanied by maps and a table of primary resources. The maps reflect our findings on surveyed jurisdictions with the first map describing whether jurisdictions expressly protect persons with disabilities in their constitutions. The second map illustrates whether the jurisdiction has specific legislation that addresses access to information for persons with disabilities. Additional maps show which countries have ratified the Marrakesh Treaty and what countries have designated “NLS-style” libraries, specifically mandated to provide access and services to persons with disabilities.
The report supported the Law Library’s Human Rights Day Webinar on Laws Governing Accessibility from Around the World.
We invite you to review our report, here.
The report is an addition to the Law Library’s Legal Reports (Publications of the Law Library of Congress) collection, which includes over 4,000 historical and contemporary legal reports covering a variety of jurisdictions, researched and written by foreign law specialists with expertise in each area. To receive alerts when new reports are published, you can subscribe to email updates for Law Library Reports (click the “subscribe” button on the Law Library’s website). The Law Library also regularly publishes articles related to human rights and civil liberties in the Global Legal Monitor.