The right to communicate — and the right to be heard
International disability law treats access to communication as a right. A new paper argues that the right is hollow without a matching duty to listen.
The paper, published in 2025, builds on Article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — the right to freedom of expression and access to information — and on similar provisions in U.S., U.K., and EU disability law.
Its central move is to argue that a right to communicate, on its own, is not enough. If the people and institutions around the disabled person are not obligated to slow down, take alternative communication seriously, and act on what is said, the right is decorative.
The right to be heard
The authors propose treating "being heard" as a distinct, complementary right: a duty on partners, schools, medical providers, and the legal system to recognize, document, and respond to communication that does not arrive through speech.
Concretely, this means: medical consent processes that accommodate AAC and supported typing; school IEP processes that take a student's own typed input seriously; legal proceedings that allow for time and partner support without treating either as evidence of incompetence.
Why this frame matters here
Much of the debate over supported communication methods has been argued as if it were a purely empirical question — does the message belong to the person, yes or no. The right-to-be-heard frame does not displace that question, but it adds another: what is the institutional response when the answer is uncertain?
The authors' position is that uncertainty does not justify silencing. It justifies more careful listening.