Chapter 5 proposes an interpretation of Article 12 that allows for decision-making by substitutes as a last resort through relocating personhood from recognition of autonomy to recognition of dignity. It settles on a concept of dignity as inherent, as a legal principle (not a right) that underpins human rights and the CRPD, and as having five dimensions. The first dimension recognises the equal worth or value of all human beings. The second recognises autonomy as an important component of dignity for people who have autonomy but seeks to position autonomy as only one very valuable good amongst others. The third recognises dignity as reflexive and acknowledging the interdependent, interpersonal and social nature of being human. The fourth recognises personhood as embodied and particular, thereby acknowledging the residual impacts of impairment and the materiality of our lives. The fifth dimension demands an understanding of rights as interdependent and indivisible.

Chapter 3 explains the principle of the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights (‘the principle of indivisibility) as recognising: (a) the equal importance of economic, social and cultural rights with civil and political rights, and (b) the interdependence of rights within and across categories. It explains how the privileging of civil and political rights, including the right to legal capacity, erroneously frames state restraint as always rights-affirming; such framing, in turn, demands the abolition of decision-making by substitutes. It argues that depending on how an adult with cognitive disability is contingently situated even after all supports are provided, they may require a decision to be made by a substitute to fulfil an immediate socio-economic need and to claim their human rights. It argues that Article 12, in requiring supports for legal capacity, is a ‘hybrid’ civil and political and socio-economic right, illustrating and driving the principle of indivisibility in the CRPD.

Chapter 7 summarises the book’s findings and explains their implications for advocacy and law reform. It argues that recognition of the indivisibility of human rights is important to ensure that targeted services are provided for people with disability to address their disproportionate levels of socio-economic disadvantage. It decries the privileging of civil and political rights especially the right to legal capacity over all other rights, for encouraging the ‘lazy state’ that erroneously justifies its neglect of marginalised people in the name of upholding their human rights. It provides the example of personalised or individualised services premised on simplistic notions of choice and control, which often fail to uphold the rights of people with cognitive disabilities. It stresses the importance for the state and community of acknowledging difference to promote services that ensure civil, economic, political, social and cultural inclusion in all cases.

Chapter 6 argues that in interpreting the right to legal capacity ‘on an equal basis with others’, a substantive notion of inclusive equality must be applied. In doing so, it applies but also critiques General Comment No 6: On Equality and Non-Discrimination, published by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Inclusive equality demands recognition of the difference of impairment and associated disadvantages. Once difference is acknowledged, either supported decision-making or decision-making by substitutes may be required to recognise an adult’s legal capacity ‘on an equal basis with others’ and to promote inclusion. This chapter draws on existing commentary explaining the ‘hybrid’ nature of the right to equality in bridging both socio-economic and civil and political rights and driving the principle of indivisibility.

This chapter theorizes that sovereignty is the interplay of two contrasting modalities. In Idealized Sovereignty, sovereign authority is represented exclusively in “the state” per the doctrine of indivisibility developed by early modern theorists and reified in IR theory. In Lived Sovereignty, achieving sovereign competence involves divisible practices of state and nonstate actors in a variety of social relations. We would do a disservice to sovereignty’s complexity if only one of the two modes persevered in analyses of sovereignty. Instead, the chapter intervenes in major IR debates to argue that sovereignty should be hybridized. This overarching framework guides the ideal-types of public/private hybridity developed in the next chapter and the empirical analyses in the remainder of this book, where hybrid sovereignty is necessary to build a global empire, go to war, regulate global markets, and protect rights.

This chapter explores whether international and European human rights laws provide for the determinants of health of irregular migrants. The determinants of health, together with health care, are part of the scope of the right to health and constitute a particularly important area within the field of public health. Indeed, the enjoyment of human and social rights that support the determinants of health is in keeping with the concepts of empowerment, indivisibility, interrelatedness and vulnerability, which ground human rights law. However, an examination of the applicable human rights jurisprudence reveals that where irregular migrants are concerned, these narratives often – but not always − dissipate in the face of the imperative, as states see it, to control immigration, resulting in the social rights – other than the right to health care − of irregular migrants being guaranteed at only a basic or survival level.

This book explores three contemporary women’s movements in and around Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade: Women for the Temple, a messianic Jewish Orthodox women’s movement campaigning for access to Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif; Murabitat, pious Muslim women activists mobilizing for the defense of al-Aqsa Mosque from Jewish claims; and Women of the Wall (WOW), a Jewish feminist organization working against restrictive gender regulations at the Western Wall. Using these cases, the book demonstrates how attention to gender and to women’s engagement in conflict over central sacred places is essential for understanding the intra-communal processes that make contested sacred sites appear increasingly “indivisible” for parties in the inter-communal context. More broadly, the book argues that a gender analysis of contested sacred places enriches and sharpens both our description of the “choreographies” of such sites and our analytical understanding of the contemporary dynamics of conflict in these sites; in particular the processes that give rise to the problem of “indivisibility.”