The Law Center's mission under this agenda is to end discrimination and abuse against persons with disabilities and secure their inclusion and full participation in all aspects of mainstream society.

There are four components to this project including: education, community services, the criminal justice system and advancing the rights of persons with disabilities internationally.

education
community services
criminal justice system
international project

The Law Center's international disabilities rights project began in 2001 when it was asked by members of the Human Rights Protection Committee of the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) to host a week-long series of seminars about the American legal model of protecting the civil rights of persons with disabilities. These seminars were organized in preparation for a JFBA conference in November 2001 on the state of disabilities law in Japan and the critical need for passage of anti-discriminatory legislation.

As a result of the success of these seminars, the Law Center and members of the committee resolved to establish a collaborative partnership whose primary objective would be the strengthening of the disabilities rights movements in each nation to advance the civil and human rights for persons with disabilities in Japan and the United States. Funding was requested and received from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP) to finance a series of six exchanges between the Law Center's disabilities rights lawyers and advocates from Japan. The Law Center's Thomas Gilhool, Judith Gran and Barbara Ransom traveled on separate occasions to Japan to share their expertise in the areas of education, community-based services, criminal justice, employment and transportation. Three delegations of Japanese persons with and without disabilities came to the United States, including a thirty plus person delegation that traveled across New Hampshire, the first state to close its sole institution, to visit and interact with persons with disabilities living and working in the community.

Subsequently, the Law Center's Thomas Gilhool received in 2002 a Fulbright scholarship to further study and write comparatively in Japan about the varied uses of the law to advance the exercise of citizenship of persons with disabilities. Mr. Gilhool, from 2003-2004, traveled extensively throughout Japan researching the status and treatment of persons with disabilities, as well as the current efforts underway by advocates and policy makers working for equality and inclusion of this population in mainstream society.

In the Summer of 2004, the international project continued when the Law Center hosted in New York City the first of three exchanges scheduled for 2004-2005. These exchanges were again made possible by a generous grant from CGP. Participants included the United Nations representative of Japan, representatives of CGP, three members of the Japanese Diet, representatives from Disabled Peoples International (DPI) and Legal Advocacy for the Defense of People with Disabilities (LADD), and the United Nations Ad hoc Committee Advisor of the Korean government. American participants included several staff members and advocates from the Law Center, the Disability Section Chief of the U.S. Office on Civil Rights, disabilities rights attorneys, as well as representatives from the World Institute on Disability, the Oral History Project on Disabilities Rights and the Independent Living Movement of the University of California at Berkeley, and others. The next exchange was held in Tokyo in early 2005.

The work carried out, as of 2005, revealed that in Japan, as well as in other nations throughout Asia and the Pacific region, legal systems still tend to focus strongly on welfare versus rights-based law and adhere to the viewpoint of a disability as a tragedy or a defect that is the fault of the individual. Service systems remain provider versus consumer based-something advocates are fighting to change. While Japan and some other nations in Asia have employment quota laws, enforcement remains lax, and in other segments of society there are almost no effective legal remedies against discrimination. Institutionalization and segregation in education remain pervasive. Disabilities rights advocates in Japan and throughout the region are now seeking aggressively passage of an equivalent to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A key element to advocates' and non-governmental organizations' efforts worldwide to strengthen the international disabilities rights movement has been the use of the processes and documents of the United Nations to advance respective nations' situations domestically. The August 2005 exchange was organized to coincide with the United Nations' annual Ad hoc committee meeting on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Law Center received accreditation in 2002 to attend and participate in these annual meetings.

In addition to Japan, the Law Center plans in the future to expand the focus of its international work to include cross comparative analysis of the legal rights afforded to persons with disabilities in other nations throughout the Asia Pacific region.  Early steps in mutual support include pairing U.S. Independent Living Centers with centers for displaced persons in Thailand, Cambodia and Nepal, assisting the creation of People First Organizations in Korea and Thailand, supporting the Thai disability movement in making the new Bangkok international airport accessible, celebrating in each country the closure of New Zealand's last institution, and learning from one another to secure enforceable education, employment, and civil rights laws everywhere.  In the decade ahead, the Law Center hopes to intensify this network of mutual support representation before UN treaty-monitoring and enforcing bodies and to extend the Asia-Pacific network to include South and Central America.