ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to examine the most challenging areas from the perspective of the CRPD. The most challenging areas include the imposition of the death penalty, the use of enforced disappearance, the rights of the unborn, abortion, euthanasia and assisted dying. The universality of the right to life has not been upheld and its inalienable characteristics have been downplayed. Both Article 6(1) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and 10(1) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) expressly prohibit the arbitrary deprivation of the right to life. The chapter, from a CRPD perspective, examines the interplay between the right to life and the right to freedom from torture through the case of Vasily Yuzepchuk v Belarus. The high level of institutionalisation of services for persons with disabilities in Belgium presented the risk that euthanasia could be misused to terminate the lives of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.
