Understanding The UN Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities

211 Pages·2010·6.67 MB·English

July 2010
A HAndbook on tHe HumAn RigHts
of PeRsons witH disAbilities
Understanding The UN
Convention On The Rights
Of Persons With Disabilities
Marianne Schulze
Author: Marianne Schulze
Edited by: Handicap International, Technical Resources Division, Knowledge Management Unit
Technical Support: Catherine Dixon, Knowledge Management Unit
Corrections and Editing (third version): Stéphanie Deygas, Elodie Finel, Sophie Bonifas, Knowledge
Management Unit
Graphics: Catherine Artiglia
Layout: Stéphanie Bardoux
Printer: Fedex Office and Print Services
303 W56th Street
New York, NY 100019-3703
Cover photo: UNCRPD 8th Ad Hoc Committee Meeting, Aug. 2006 © Catherine Dixon / Handicap
International
ISBN: 978-2-909064-48-2
This guide may be used or reproduced for non-commercial uses only. The source has to be quoted
in any event of use.
Second edition: September 2009 (ISBN: 978-2-909064-18-5)
Third edition: August 2010
Available Online :
http://www.handicap-international.fr/fileadmin/documents/publications/HICRPDManual.pdf
Acknowledgements
Author: Marianne Schulze
Technical support: Damjan Tatic, Kirsten Young, Muhannad Alazzeh
The first version of this manual was named “Understanding the UN Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities” and dated from September 2007. It was used in the framework of
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the Share-SEE project . The first version of this manual has been realised thanks to the financial
support of The Department for International Development of the United Kingdom (DFID), the
European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and Handicap International (HI).
This second version has been updated by Marianne Schulze with the support of Handicap
International.
The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the author and can in no way be taken to
reflect the views of the organizations that provided support.
This guide may be used or reproduced for non-commercial uses only. The source has to be
quoted in any event of use.
About the author: Marianne Schulze is an Australian-Austrian human rights advocate; based in
Vienna, Austria she works as a free-lance consultant on a variety of human rights issues. She
was a monitor, analyst, reporter and advocate in the negotiations of the Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities. Since December 2008 she chairs the Austrian monitoring committee
under the Convention. She studied law at the University of Sydney, Australia, the University of
Vienna and – as a Fulbright scholar – at the Center for Civil & Human Rights at the University of
Notre Dame du Lac. Her work is featured on www.humanrightsconsultant.at, where she blogs
regularly.
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A regional project to Advocate for Rights and equal opportunities for Persons with disabilities, in the balkans,
see http://www.share-see.org/hpage.htm
Table of content
FOREWORD page 6
PRESENTATION OF THE MANUAL BY THE AUTHOR page 7
page 9
RESOURCES
page 12
ACRONYMS
page 13
INTRODUCTION
page 21
CONVENTION AFTER 2006
PREAMBLE page 26
ARTICLE 1 Purpose page 34
ARTICLE 2 page 40
ARTICLE 3 General Principles page 44
ARTICLE 4 General Obligations page 50
ARTICLE 5 Equality And Non-discrimination page 61
ARTICLE 6 Women With Disabilities page 65
ARTICLE 7 Children With Disabilities page 69
ARTICLE 8 Awareness-raising page 73
ARTICLE 9 Accessibility page 75
ARTICLE 10 Right To Life page 81
ARTICLE 11 Situations Of Risk And Humanitarian Emergencies page 83
ARTICLE 12 Equal Recognition Before The Law page 86
ARTICLE 13 Access To Justice page 94
ARTICLE 14 Liberty And Security Of The Person page 96
ARTICLE 15 Freedom From Torture Or Cruel, Inhuman Or Degrading Treatment
Or Punishment page 99
ARTICLE 16 Freedom From Exploitation, Violence And Abuse page 102
ARTICLE 17 Protecting The Integrity Of The Person page 109
ARTICLE 18 Liberty Of Movement And Nationality page 110
ARTICLE 19 Living Independently And Being Included In The Community page 113
ARTICLE 20 Personal Mobility page 117
ARTICLE 21 Freedom Of Expression And Opinion, And Access To Information page 119
ARTICLE 22 Respect For Privacy page 123
ARTICLE 23 Respect For Home And The Family page 126
ARTICLE 24 Education page 132
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Table of content
ARTICLE 25 Health page 138
ARTICLE 26 Habilitation And Rehabilitation page 145
ARTICLE 27 Work And Employment page 149
ARTICLE 28 Adequate Standard Of Living And Social Protection page 155
ARTICLE 29 Participation In Political And Public Life page 161
ARTICLE 30 Participation In Cultural Life, Recreation, Leisure And Sport page 166
ARTICLE 31 Statistics And Data Collection page 171
ARTICLE 32 International Cooperation page 173
ARTICLE 33 National Implementation And Monitoring page 175
ARTICLE 34 Committee On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities page 179
ARTICLE 35 Reports By States Parties page 182
ARTICLE 36 Consideration Of Reports page 185
ARTICLE 37 Cooperation Between States Parties And The Committee page 186
ARTICLE 38 Relationship Of The Committee With Other Bodies page 186
ARTICLE 39 Report Of The Committee page 187
ARTICLE 40 Conference Of States Parties page 188
FINAL CLAUSES page 189
ARTICLE 41 Depositary page 189
ARTICLE 42 Signature page 190
ARTICLE 43 Consent To Be Bound page 190
ARTICLE 44 Regional Integration Organizations page 191
ARTICLE 45 Entry Into Force page 192
ARTICLE 46 Reservations page 193
ARTICLE 47 Amendments page 194
ARTICLE 48 Denunciation page 195
ARTICLE 49 Accessible Format page 195
ARTICLE 50 Authentic Texts page 195
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL page 196
APPENDIX 1 : CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES page 201
APPENDIX 2 : CORE HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES page 201
APPENDIX 3 : RECENT PERTINENT RESOLUTIONS page 203
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Foreword
The Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was drafted and negotiated
between 2002 – 2006. Since that time, we have entered into the important processes of ratifcation,
implementation and monitoring. As of July 2010, 87 countries have ratifed the Convention, 54
have ratifed its Optional Protocol and 145 have signed the CRPD.
At the international level, the frst and second Conference of States Parties (COSP) were held
in New York City in November, 2008 and in September, 2009. The third Conference of States
Parties is scheduled to take place in New York in early September 2010. The CRPD Committee
was elected and met for the frst time in Geneva in February 2009 and has held further meetings
since. The Committee’s function is to monitor the implementation of the CRPD at the international
level through receiving and reviewing reports from state parties and reports from civil society. The
COSP has to become a central place for allowing for dialog and exchange between states, civil
society, UN agencies and human rights institutions for the purpose of the implementation of the
Convention.
This manual is a tool for explaining the content of the CRPD and provides detailed information on
what occurred during the negotiation and drafting process. It gives a comprehensive overview of the
CRPD, and the positions taken by the different stakeholders involved (government delegates, UN
agencies, human rights institutions and other representatives from civil society, most importantly
disabled people’s organizations (DPOs)).
This document also provides information on interpreting the text of the CRPD and providing
further information for its implementation at the local, national, regional and international levels.
As we witness a global shift from the old individual and charity models of disability to the social
model, the understanding of and hence the action taken on disability issues has changed from
considering persons with disabilities as objects of pity to persons with human rights. This analysis
of the text of the Convention is an important step to its promotion and understanding. It will
support the movement for the realization of the paradigm change on disability issues by providing
a clear framework on human rights and social development issues.
Philippe Chervin
Rhonda Neuhaus
Catherine Dixon
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Presentation
Presentation
Of The Manual By The Author
The purpose of this manual is to explain the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
in the context of other core human rights treaties to strengthen its place in the mainstream of
human rights discourse. As has frequently been emphasized: the Convention does not create any
new rights. It does, however, highlight the accessibility and inclusion angle of all human rights.
The manual goes through all the Articles of the Convention. It provides the narrative of the
drafting process, whenever suitable and helpful to the general understanding of provisions. The
bargaining and deals of a drafting process are a given and are therefore not dwelled on. Each
Article is linked to similar provisions both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
core human rights treaties. The interrelation between the various human rights treaties is spelled
out in the Introduction.
Furthermore, most human rights have by now been subject to general explanations by expert bodies
within the United Nations system. Wherever they seem helpful to gain a better understanding of
the right, they have been included.
Most importantly, the manual gives a comprehensive – but by no means complete – overview
of the positions taken by civil society, especially Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs), and
other stakeholders in the drafting process – as perceived by observers. Many of the suggestions
provided by civil society, mainly through the International Disability Caucus (IDC) – which took
shape in the negotiation process – are either summarized or provided in full. The civil society
proposals are mainly those provided before the fnalization of the Convention, all of them are
taken from public domain.
The manual was frst drafted for a training of NGOs and DPOs in Belgrade, Serbia in September
2007. Dr. Damjan Tatic, who subsequently took on the translation into Serbian with much admired
bravery, commented on the initial draft with most helpful suggestions. The revision of said draft
was supported by very useful remarks of Dr. Muhannad Alazzeh from Handicap International
(a member of the IDC) in Amman. Both gentlemen had participated in the negotiations of the
Convention, Dr. Tatic representing Serbia. Throughout the process of writing, Dr. Kirsten Young,
who lent her expertise to the drafting process through Landmine Survivors Network (a member
of the IDC also - now SurvivorCorps), shared her valuable insights and expertise. Finally, I wish
to acknowledge Stefan Tromel, from the IDC who shared an unpublished commentary of the
Convention. Notwithstanding the level of expert support, all errors remain the author’s.
The update of the Manual introduces a new section on “The Convention after 2006”, which
highlights some of the key documents adopted by United Nations bodies following the adoption of
the Convention. Furthermore, the importance of the obligation to involve DPOs (Article 4 (3)) has
been further elaborated, among others.
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I wish to acknowledge Alexandre Cote, then Director of Handicap International South East Europe
program for kick-starting this project. My profuse thanks to Philippe Chervin and Catherine Dixon,
Sophie Bonifas and Stéphanie Deygas for seeing this text through to publication. Various people
have lent their support to the drafting of this manual, they are too numerous to list, I would like to
thank them all.
Marianne Schulze
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Resources
References
and Sources for this Guide
The text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities forms the
obvious basis for this manual ; Convention text quotes are presented in white letters in coloured
frames.
When other human rights texts are quoted, they appear in italics. When treaty bodies (committees)
have issued comments or statements on one of these texts, they are presented in a frame.
There are several sources, which assist the understanding of the provisions’ history and scope –
also framing them as broader human rights issues. In bold letters in the text below, their references
are following on the next page.
The history of the Convention text is covered in a number of summary documents, the most
important ones are the text following the Third Ad Hoc Committee, referred to as the Working
Group Text and the redrafted version of the text, which the Chair, H.E. Ambassador Don
MacKay crafted after the Sixth Ad Hoc Committee, referred to as the Working Text. In addition
the history is supported by amendments and comments provided by governments, many of which
are posted on the UN Enable web site, also in the Daily Summaries and Background
Papers from the Offce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which can be
found there.
Civil society, particularly DPOs, many of which became members of the International Disability
Caucus (IDC) contributed enormously and tirelessly to the understanding of human rights issues
in the disability context and therewith the drafting of a text strongly focused on the rights of persons
with disabilities seen from a disability perspective. Particularly the IDC’s suggested amendments
to the Working Text are an invaluable source in understanding a few of the controversies and also
some last minute compromises.
The drafting process was closely followed by the observers of the International Service for
Human Rights New York offce; the analysis of the various sessions by Marianne Schulze, Sean
Marlaire, Valeria Iannitti, Bethany Sousa, Alison Graham under the editorial leadership of Michelle
Evans give a thorough overview of the discussion of each article. In addition an unpublished text
by IDC member Stefan Tromel provided summaries of each article’s development.
The Offce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a
volume on Disability and Human Rights, written an compiled by Gerard Quinn and Theresia
Degener together with other experts; it covers disability in the general human rights context and
served as one of the triggers for the negotiation process; obviously it makes very good background
reading.
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Finally, in placing the new Convention in a broader human rights context, the numerous General
Comments and General Recommendations, which the Treaty Bodies have adopted
over the years, are the core source in sketching out the various angles of each provision in the
overall human rights discourse.
Working Group Text
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/ahcwgreport.htm
Working Text:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/ahcchairletter7oct.htm
Enable web site:
http://www.un.org/disabilities
Daily Summaries and Background Papers: http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=1423
International Service for Human Rights:
http://www.ishr.ch/content/view/401/572/
Gerard Quinn/ Theresia Degener et al, OFfice of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ed.),
Human Rights and Disability
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/HRDisabilityen.pdf
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/disability/docs/Studydisability_en.doc
Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations adopted by Human Rights
Treaty Bodies, HRI/GEN/1/Rev.7
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ca12c3a4ea8d6c53c1256d500056e56f?Opendocument
All other General Comments and Recommendations may be found on the web site of the pertinent
treaty body:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/
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