A presentation by Paolo Vargiu, Associate Professor at the University of Leicester. This event is part of the Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium under the cluster "Fundamental Rights and (Anti-)Discrimination" hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
This paper addresses the tension between the formal articulation of disability rights and the practical realities of their implementation within the context of commercial arbitration. Drawing upon the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the ICC Guide on Disability Inclusion in Arbitration, the paper explores how these texts construct a programme of inclusivity, where the presence of disabled lawyers is nominally encouraged yet remains thwarted by the historical conservatism of legal practice. In the symbolic space of arbitration, where codes and protocols dominate, the disabled body is rendered invisible, and its potential inclusion displaced by a legal orthodoxy that privileges a narrow definition of professional capacity. The discursive framing of “accessibility” becomes, in this context, less a reality and more a rhetorical gesture - one that reveals the distance between the progressive aspirations of international law and the stubborn inertia of the field arbitration. This paper concludes that, despite the regulatory frameworks heralding equality, the structural barriers that inhibit the participation of disabled lawyers in arbitration suggest that inclusion remains more an idealised programme than an achievable reality.
Paolo Vargiu is Associate Professor at the University of Leicester, where he teaches international law, international arbitration, and law & religion. He has published extensively on international investment law and arbitration, public international law and human rights. Paolo Vargiu holds degrees from the universities of Cagliari (JD), Nottingham (LLM, PhD) and Leicester (PGCHE); he is a qualified attorney in Italy and a practicing independent arbitrator. Paraplegic since 2015, he mentors disabled youth for a number of associations of spinal cord injured persons.
Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the dial-in details as well as a draft paper, on which the presentation is based, via e-mail prior to the event.