Maya Sabatello, PhD, LLB
Maya Sabatello is a human rights and international law specialist, focusing on disability rights and bioethics. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California and an LL.B. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She litigated cases of medical negligence and has worked as a legal advisor to national and international non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations, to promote health-related human rights (e.g. reproductive health, HIV/ AIDS) and disability issues. As a permanent representative for a nongovernmental organization at the United Nations she participated in the UN sessions on the formulation of the Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. Maya teaches at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs and Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, where she is the founder and director of a nascent program to promote disability rights via advocacy, capacity-building, research and teaching. Her research is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, and she is interested in the intersection between law, ethics, and practice in questions relating particularly to minority groups and children in clinical settings, including primarily medical pluralism, doctors/ patients’ communication, children as active participants in medical decision-making, and the ethics and social dimensions of new medical technologies particularly in lieu of disability rights. Maya has published in journals including Human Rights Quarterly, The Journal of Medicine and Law, Disability and Society, and the International Journal of Children’s Rights. Her book, “Children’s Bioethics: The International Bio-Political Discourse on Harmful Traditional Practices and the Right of the Child to Cultural Identity” (Martinus Nijhoff/ Brill Publishing) was published in 2009, and her book, “Voices From Within: Civil Society’s Involvement in the Drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (co-edited), is forthcoming by Penn University Press.
