Mira Lan Gaitanis, a second-year student in the College of Law, recently attended the 17th Annual International Disability Law Summer School, held by the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the University of Galway. The theme was “The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) Twenty Years On: New Horizons and Emerging Challenges.”

The three-day conference covered the convention’s drafting history through the gaps and emerging challenges now testing it, to its future and a participatory exercise imagining a revised treaty.

The College of Law and the Disability Law and Policy Program sponsored Gaitanis’ participation in the conference.

Gaitanis, a research assistant at the Burton Blatt Institute, says the conference provided “an honest reckoning with what the UNCRPD has and has not changed in disabled people’s lives; a reframing of the convention as one tool among many rather than the endpoint; and a clear sense that the next wave of leadership will come from the minds of young disabled people, working in collaboration with earlier generations who are living testaments to disability history and the current movement.”

She also presented a poster, “Presence Is Practice: Music, Independent Living and the Law as a Form of Advocacy.”  The poster argued that advocacy does not only happen in courtrooms and legislatures, but happens every time a disabled person walks into a room that was not built for them and stays. The poster highlighted Gaitanis’ multi-dimensional advocacy through her music. A member of the Recording Artists and Musicians with Disabilities, Gaitanis has released three albums with the band Flat Moon Theory, with songs such as “See Me As I Am” and “Sparrow,” each illustrating her journey as a micropreemie with low vision and chronic pain.

The poster also traced her advocacy journey, including her first individualized education program meeting in fifth grade, her participation in the Florida Youth Leadership Forum, her involvement with Disability Rights Florida and her internships with AAPD and The Harkin Institute. It then illustrates her journey to Galway for the conference and her goal of serving as U.S. special advisor on international disability rights.

At the conclusion of the conference, participants were challenged with drafting new articles for the UNCRPD. Gaitanis served as her group’s envoy, coordinating with the other groups’ envoys in the exercise’s private Discord channel so that, where ideas overlapped, each group could carry forward a distinct proposal. The group proposed, among other things, amending Article 34 to seat a youth representative and create a youth subcommittee.

As part of the craftivism portion of the conference, Gaitanis created a zine titled “Reflections and Musings,” with the cover titled “Nothing About Us Without Us,” that combined collage, printmaking and handwritten notes from the week.

“There were so many incredible speakers, and my favorite part was the participatory exercise that let us imagine the improvements we would make to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” says Gaitanis. “My idea was to add a youth representative to the main board and create a subcommittee dedicated to youth and disability. I also deeply valued the panel ‘The Road Ahead: Bringing the UNCRPD into a New Era.’ We are at a turning point in disability rights history, and youth are the ones who can bring in the next wave through activism, community and collective action.”