Online Mental Disability Law Education, a Disability Rights Tribunal and the Creation of an Asian Disability Law Database: Their Impact on Research, Training and Teaching of Law, Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia

DOI10.1177/2321005813505457
Date01 January 2014
Published date01 January 2014
Subject MatterArticles
Military-Madrasa-Mullah Complex 15
India Quarterly, 66, 2 (2010): 133–149
A Global Threat 15
Article
Online Mental Disability Law
Education, a Disability Rights
Tribunal and the Creation of an
Asian Disability Law Database:
Their Impact on Research,
Training and Teaching of Law,
Criminology and Criminal
Justice in Asia
Michael L. Perlin
Heather Cucolo
Yoshikazu Ikehara, Esq
Abstract
Two professors at New York Law School (NYLS) and the director of the Tokyo Advocacy Law Office
are engaged in initiatives with the potential to have major influences on the study of law, criminology
and criminal justice: the creation of a Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the Pacific (DRTAP)
and expansion of NYLS’s online mental disability law programme (OMDLP) to include numerous
Asian venues.
DRTAP seeks to create a sub-regional body (a Commission and eventually a Court) to hear
violations of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This will explicitly inspire
scholarship about issues such as treatment of forensic patients, relationships between mental disability
enforcement and criminal law enforcement, and connections between mental disability and criminal
procedure.
NYLS’s OMDLP offers thirteen valuable courses to criminologists and criminal justice scholars
and will host DRICAP (Disability Rights Information Center for Asia and the Pacific), providing
Internet access to important disability rights developments from ten nations in the Asia/Pacific region.
This partnership offers unrivalled knowledge in criminal justice and mental disability law.
Our article will detail and explain how these programmes train, teach and foster new research,
distinctively benefiting Asia’s legal/advocacy/criminology/criminal justice communities.
Michael L. Perlin is a Professor and Director of International Mental Disability Law Reform Project
and Online Mental Disability Law Programme at the New York Law School, USA.
Heather Cucolo is an Adjunct Professor at the New York Law School, USA.
Yoshikazu Ikehara, Esq is the Director of Tokyo Advocacy Law Ofcers, Japan.
Asian Journal of Legal Education
1(1) 15–31
© 2014 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/2321005813505457
http://ale.sagepub.com
Asian Journal of Legal Education, 1, 1 (2014): 15–31
16 Michael L. Perlin, Heather Cucolo and Yoshikazu Ikehara, Esq
Introduction
The authors of this article are currently involved in two initiatives that, they believe, have the potential
to have a major impact on the study of criminology and the study and practice of criminal justice in Asia.
We—two professors at New York Law School (NYLS) (MLP and HEC) and the director of the Tokyo
Advocacy Law Office (YI)—are engaged in (1) the creation of DRTAP and (2) the expansion of NYLS’s
online, distance learning mental disability law programme to add multiple Asian venues. We believe that,
together, these initiatives will have a significant influence on legal education throughout Asia.
The DRTAP project seeks to create a sub-regional body (first as a Commission, and eventually as a
Court) to hear cases involving violations of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD), a task that will explicitly involve questions of significance to criminology/criminal
justice scholars: the treatment of forensic patients, the relationship between mental disability and
enforcement of the criminal law, the connection between mental disability and criminal procedure.
The NYLS online programme offers 13 courses in mental disability law and sections of two courses
have been taught in Japan and new partnerships are being planned in China and other Asian nations in
the future. These courses are of great value to law students, lawyers, advocates, criminologists and
criminal justice scholars and researchers worldwide.
NYLS is now hosting the DRICAP, a project that makes available on the Internet important disability
rights developments (case law, statutes, regulations, research, academic papers) from 14 nations in the
Asia/Pacific region. This project connects DRTAP and NYLS’s mental disability law programme and is,
we believe, also of great value to those whose work involves the relationship between criminal justice and
mental disability law. Our article will first discuss the development of distance learning, online legal
education in this context. It will next describe the NLYS courses and the DRTAP project and will then
explain their significance to the Asian legal advocacy/criminology/criminal justice communities and will
ultimately show how these ventures can foster new research, training and teaching initiatives in this area.
Why Distance Learning in Mental Disability Law
Introduction
Through the technology of the Internet-based education, one of the authors (MLP, a full-time professor
at NYLS)1 has created a programme of online mental disability law courses for attorneys, activists,
advocates, important stakeholder groups (consisting of consumers and users of psychiatric services,
sometimes referred to as ‘survivor groups’), mental health professionals and governmental officials in an
effort to both teach participants the bases of mental disability law and to encourage and support the
creation and expansion of grass-roots advocacy movements that may optimally lead to lasting, progressive
change in this area. Another author (HEC) is an adjunct professor in this programme who teaches
1 The full online mental disability law programme was developed at the suggestion and urging of former Dean Richard A. Matasar,
an early visionary in computer-based legal education. See e.g. Richard A. & Rosemary Shiels, Electronic Law Students:
Repercussions on Legal Education, 29 Valaparaiso l. reV. 909 (1995); Richard A. Matasar, Private Publics, Public Privates: An
Essay on Convergence in Higher Education, 10 U. Fla. J. l. & pUb. poly 5 (1998); Richard A. Matasar, Legal Education Skills
and Values Education: Debate about the Continuum Continues. 46 N.y.l.sch. l. reV. 395 (2002–2003).

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