摘要：This paper is an overview of postwar Japanese disability legislation and activism. Itanalyzes the impact of the 1981 U.N. International Year of Disabled Peoples on Japanesedisability law and on the growing disability movement. While the U.N. mandate for "fullparticipation and equality" was meant to introduce a Western social model of disability, whichfocuses on civil rights, social discrimination and stigma, this paper argues that Japanesedisability legislation continues to reflect what disability theorists term the medical model. Thismodel understands disability as physical imperfection best addressed through medical cures andrehabilitation. Japanese disability law recognizes special needs through sophisticated welfareand rehabilitation programs and a disability employment quota, but fails to recognize equal rightsand integration. The U.N. equality mandate, rather than reforming existing disability law andpolicy, has deeply impacted the Japanese disability movement. It generated a new kind ofactivism that looks to disability movements in the United States as examples of defiant disabilitypride and rights consciousness. This new generation wants to embrace equal rights andopportunities and move away from the traditional emphasis on special needs
