An African Path to Disability Justice (eBook)

How should disability justice be conceptualised, not by orthodox human rights or capabilities approaches, but by a legal philosophy that mirrors an African relational community ideal? This book develops the first comprehensive answer to this question through the contemporary literature on African philosophy, which is relied upon to construct a legal philosophy of disability justice comprising of ethical ideals of community, human relationships and obligations. From these ideals, an African legal philosophy of disability justice is offered as a criterion for critically evaluating existing laws, legal and political institutions, as well as providing an ethical basis for creating new ones to ensure that they are inclusive to people with disabilities. In taking an alternative perspective on the subject, the book outlines and emphasises the need for a new public culture of obligations owed to people with disabilities, highlighting both the prospects and difficulties of achieving the ideal of disability justice that continues to elude the lived experiences of millions of Africans today. 

Oche Onazi's An African Path to Disability Justice is the first book-length exploration of disability in the light of African ethics, as contrasted with the human rights and capabilities frameworks. Of particular interest are Onazi's thoughtful reflections on how various conceptions of community salient in African moral philosophy--including group-based, reciprocal and relational--bear on what we owe to the disabled.

                                                     --Thaddeus Metz, Distinguished Professor, University of Johannesburg

Oche Onazi is a lecturer in law at the University of Southampton and an International Social Research Foundation Early Career Research Fellow. He holds degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh (Ph.D.), Warwick (LL.M.) and Jos (LL.B.) and is a qualified (but non-practicing) barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Oche's research interests cover areas of legal philosophy, law and development and human rights. He is the author of Human Rights from Community: A Rights-Based Approach to Development, published by Edinburgh University Press in June 2013 and editor of African Legal Theory and Contemporary Problems, published by Springer in 2014. He has also published articles in the journals Law and Critique; Law, Social Justice & Global Development; Global Jurist; and the International Journal of Law in Context.