International Power and Local Action – Implications for the Intersectionality of the Rights of Women with Disability

The recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) reframes how policy responds to disability, difference, interdependence and rights. We examine how Australian disability activists used the CRPD to advocate for the intersectional rights of women with disability. We applied a framework from Zwingel's conceptualisation of mutually constituting global norms to analyse the intersectionality of rights represented in three stages of the CRPD process – during the drafting, the wording in the Convention, and the periodic review. We found that disability activists were able to shape the gendering of disability through their targeted representation as people with lived experience. This expertise filled a knowledge gap in the policy process valued by the actors at other policy levels. Extending Zwingel's concept of global discourse translation, it also suggests that the dynamic contribution continues in the international interpretation of the CRPD itself.