ABSTRACT
Spurred by social and demographic developments, the subject of residential care is gaining increasing importance in public debate with a consequent heightened sensitivity to the need to ensure that older persons in care live in conditions which respect their dignity. The matter concerns us all. As more and more of us are expected to live longer, we face the prospect of spending the last years of our life in residential care. Respect for the dignity of older persons is ultimately respect of our dignity. At the same time, current trends, especially at the international and supranational levels, indicate attempts to develop a human rights approach specifically geared towards older persons (Megret 2011; Doron and Apter 2010; Tang and Lee 2006). As the Explanatory Memorandum to the 2014 Council of Europe Recommendation on the promotion of human rights of older persons states, ‘The increasing number of older persons in European societies augments the need to address the issue of their position in societies, including the need to promote their autonomy and to ensure their protection from a human rights perspective’ (Council of Europe 2014a, p. 1). In a similar vein, AGE Platform Europe argues that long-term care should be developed ‘using a rights-based approach’ (AGE Platform Europe 2014, p. 3). Beyond the area of older persons, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities illustrates clearly this trend.
