People with disabilities belong to a sensitive category of society and therefore require society’s attention. It is not to be expected that the number of people with disabilities will decrease, therefore society faces a constant challenge to enable them to be included in the daily life of their community in the best possible way, and thus enabling a better quality of life. First and before all, it is necessary to highlight that human rights are inherent to all humans as a birthright. As it is more difficult for people with disabilities to exercise human rights due to their physical/mental impairment, the interest and aim of this paper is to present the situation of people with disabilities in the Republic of Croatia. The paper will show how the attitude towards people with disabilities has been changing throughout history, and that the change from a negative attitude to a positive one is reflected in both international and national legal regulations. This primarily refers to the regulation of the disability terminology and to the recognition of ‘their’ rights and obligations, and so consequently improving their status in the society. To be able to act preventively to reduce the number of people with disabilities, it is necessary to know the causes of disability, and for that reason this paper will investigate the causes of disability as well as various types of body impairment caused by those causes. It will be shown how disability models have developed through the process of developing a positive attitude towards people with disabilities, from the caritative to the latest model of human rights which focuses on the dignity of human rights and on person as the bearer of human rights, not on disability. Because of the 1990s aggression on the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian War of Independence many Croatian defenders or war veterans were given the disabled Homeland War veteran status, and therefore this paper will give a detailed account of the state’s activities towards them. The paper also provides a detailed account of the national legislative framework through which the status and rights of disabled Croatian Homeland War veteran are realized.