The term “global peripheries” of law refers to areas of the world were putting human rights into effect is extremely challenging. These peripheries are the historical legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonial subjugation. As a result of centuries of colonial oppression and exploitation, as well as their disempowered status in the contemporary neoliberal global capitalist order, countries in the Global South are particularly disadvantaged in this regard. This implies they are limited human and financial resources to work with when it comes to putting legal rights into practice. In comparison to the global north, the global south has high national debt loads and devalued currencies, making it difficult or impossible to purchase goods from the Global North, such as medicine or mobility and other aids for people with illnesses or impairments, despite relying on these countries for these goods.
Being on the global law’s periphery also means seeing particularly significant gaps between what individuals hope to achieve through laws and what is actually accomplished in reality. Being on the global law’s periphery also means being in particularly marginal regions of shadow citizenship.’ These are areas where the state and legal system appear to recognise and assert the human rights of vulnerable citizens, such as the disabled, and thereby contribute to the appearance of an inclusive society. Shadow citizens, on the other hand, lack the resources (financial, lack of access to legal expertise, mobility, and other assistance) to exercise their rights in practice.
After five years of dialogue between UN officials, states in the Global North and South, and disabled individuals’ organisations, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was adopted in December 2006. Take, for example, the country of Guyana. Guyana is a country with a lower-middle-income economy. The primarily Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese population, many descendants of slaves and indentured servants who worked on sugar plantations is regarded culturally part of the Caribbean, having been colonised first by the Dutch and then by the British. In Guyana, there are roughly 73,000 disabled persons. It noted that poverty was widespread and contributed to the production of impairment as well as financial barriers to accessing services such as health care and education. Unemployment is rampant, with 40% of the jobless disabled persons polled saying they lost their work as a result of their impairment. In Guyana, there is a long and violent history of colonial and neo-colonial oppression that manifests itself in chopping violence against women, which results in impairment, death, deepening poverty, and other life-altering situations. It also has to be aware of people’s and nations’ places in the world’s uneven political-economic order, as evidenced by Guyana’s widespread and deep poverty, which both causes and exacerbates life’s debilitating conditions. (e.g., through lack of access to prostheses, medicine).
Thinking about disability human rights legislation and issues in terms of global peripheries of law has the added benefit of encouraging us to recognise that the causes of impairment and disabling circumstances of life are both global justice issues that must be considered in that larger framework. This perspective also enables us to think about impairment and disability as more than just human rights violations.