Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

states parties   states that have signed, but not ratified   states that have not signed
Drafted	13 December 2006
Signed	30 March 2007
Location	New York
Effective	3 May 2008
Condition	20 ratifications
Signatories	160
Parties	172
Depositary	Secretary-General of the United Nations
Languages	Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The Convention has served as the major catalyst in the global movement from viewing persons with disabilities as objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing them as full and equal members of society, with human rights. It is also the only UN human rights instrument with an explicit sustainable development dimension. The Convention was the first human rights treaty of the third millennium.

The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 December 2006, and opened for signature on 30 March 2007. Following ratification by the 20th party, it came into force on 3 May 2008. As of December 2016, it has 160 signatories and 172 parties, which includes 171 states and the European Union (which ratified it on 23 December 2010 to the extent responsibilities of the member states were transferred to the European Union). In December 2012, a vote in the United States Senate fell six votes short of the two-thirds majority required for ratification. The Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

1981 to 1992 was the UN "Decade of Disabled Persons". In 1987, a global meeting of experts to review progress recommended that the UN General Assembly should draft an international convention on the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities. Draft convention outlines were proposed by Italy and subsequently Sweden, but no consensus was reached. Many government representatives argued that existing human rights documents were sufficient. Instead, non-compulsory "Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities" were adopted by the General Assembly in 1993. In 2000, leaders of five international disability NGOs issued a declaration, calling on all governments to support a Convention. In 2001, the General Assembly, following a proposal by Mexico, established an Ad Hoc Committee to consider proposals for a comprehensive and integral convention to promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, based on a holistic approach. Disability rights organisations, including the International Disability Alliance as coordinator of an ad hoc International Disability Caucus, participated actively in the drafting process, in particular seeking a role for disabled people and their organisations in the implementation and monitoring of what became the Convention.