Supporting Disability Rights Scenarios: Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Law from China

Supporting Disability Rights in Competing-Interest Scenarios Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Law from China
Survey experiments show that Americans are more likely to support pro–human rights policies when they know that such policies align with international legal standards. It remains unclear whether such positive effects persist in Asian societies. In addition, although disabled people account for 16% of the world’s population, none of the existing studies has tested the effect of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the international human rights treaty that protects the rights of disabled people. As the first of its kind, this talk presents findings from an online survey experiment in China that tests nondisabled people’s support for disability rights in scenarios involving conflicts with public safety. The study evaluates how different legal information influences attitudes, including references to China’s domestic disability law and the CRPD, which China ratified in 2008. This presentation discusses the preliminary outcomes of the survey experiment and the possibilities and limitations of rights/law discourse in bringing meaningful social change for marginalized groups in Asia generally, and in China in particular. 

Mercy Renci Xie is a juris doctorate candidate at the College of Law, Syracuse University. Her research explores whether and how law can bring meaningful social change for marginalized groups by using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. As a disabled person, her current project examines the effects of international and domestic disability law in shaping disabled people, non-disabled people, and other stakeholders, including institutions, in Asian societies. Her work will appear in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.