Persons with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Yet, they are often forgotten in academic debates, and mostly absent from current litigation of IHL violations(including eugenicide or the targeting of people with disabilities in the context of armed conflict), including at the International Criminal Court (ICC). This panel aims to shed light on the different ways in which IHL already provides protection for persons with disabilities and whether it currently addresses the specific factors that place disabled persons at risk, such as barriers to equitable access to protection and/or assistance, how these protections could be enhanced, and how international legal practitioners can incorporate issues related to disability in their litigation before the ICC and other international tribunals.

Looking beyond the parameters of legislative provisions and fiscal policies to the definitions and origins of vocabulary surrounding the classification and description of ‘disability’, issues concerning cultural perspectives or customary stigmas and stereotypes of what identifies an impairment.