The Disability Rights Scholarship Program provides year-long LLM awards to disability rights advocates and lawyers so they can develop the expertise to pursue new legislation, jurisprudence, impact litigation, and scholarship.

With this scholarship, Fellows will have the ability to challenge rights violations in their home countries by drafting enforceable legislation consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), utilizing enforcement mechanisms set forth in the Convention, taking forward disability rights litigation, requesting CRPD-compliant remedies, and engaging in disability rights advocacy.

Eligibility Criteria

The Program does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Candidates with disabilities are particularly encouraged to apply. The competition is merit-based and open to those meeting the following criteria:

• Citizen and legal resident of Nepal, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, or Colombia at the time of the application;
• Have work experience in the legal profession or advocacy experience focusing on human/disability rights;
• Demonstrate an excellent academic record with a Bachelor's degree in Law (in exceptional circumstances, those without a law degree but with substantial experience may be considered);
• Demonstrated leadership in field of disability rights;

Proficient spoken and written English or French and able to meet university-designated minimum scores on standardized language tests.

Application Deadline

December 10, 2012

For further details, please see the detailed guidelines available for download on the left of the page or contact the appropriate regional coordinator. For those needing materials in a different format, please contact the regional coordinator:

Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe:
Centre for Human Rights
(c/o  Mr. Jehoshaphat Njau)
Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
Pretoria, 002, South Africa
Email:jehoshaphat.njau@up.ac.za

Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Derechos Humanos
Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
Calle 25 de Mayo 2855. 8º piso
Mar del Plata, CP 7600, Argentina
Contact: Prof. Francisco Bariffi
Email: drp@redcdpd.org
Website: www.redcdpd.org
Tel-Fax: +54-223-491-1376

Nepal:
Alliance for Social Dialogue
GPO Box 25334
Ramchandra Marg, Battisputali
Kathmandu, Nepal
Contact: Ms. Srishti Adhikari
Email: scholarship@asd.org.np
Phone: +977-1-4472807