PRESS CONFERENCE ON DRAFT CONVENTION FOR DISABLED PERSONS

PRESS CONFERENCE ON DRAFT CONVENTION FOR DISABLED PERSONS

The president of the Committee preparing a draft international convention to protect the rights of disabled persons said today at a press conference that he hoped to have a draft in the next couple of years that was responsive to the nature of disability.

Briefing correspondents on the Committee’s work during its second session, which began at Headquarters on 16 June and would conclude this afternoon, Luis Gallegos (Ecuador) said the process constituted a major step in international efforts to legislate on behalf of the disabled community.  The decision to have such a convention was historic and had led to negotiation on a convention in the very near future.  The decision and the resolution were still being negotiated, but he hoped to have those “ironed out and tailored” by this afternoon.

(The Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disability, which was entrusted with considering proposals for such a convention, was established by the General Assembly in 2001 (resolution 56/168), based on a proposal by Mexico).

The disability issue was relevant to the international community, whether those among the estimated 600 million disabled persons worldwide were born with disability or acquired it through sickness, accident, or old age.  Some 40 to
50 per cent of households knew someone or were related to someone with disabilities.  The instrument presently being negotiated would create a “verifiable and enforceable” regime for the protection and promotion of the human rights of disabled persons.

Such a convention would guide attitudes for generations to come, he said.  That was an important step for the United Nations, which sought to be in the forefront of an evolution towards a holistic and integrated society that incorporated groups which, for different reasons, had been discriminated against.  He hoped that the first draft of the convention would be ready by early next year.  The disabled community had been participating actively in the talks, as those were the shareholders and “guiders” of the process.  As facilitator, he greatly admired their dedication to meet their community’s challenges.

Responding to a series of questions, he said work had been under way for one year on a decision and resolution that would be taken forward to the General Assembly.  Those were still being “tightened up”, but there was now an agreement from which to negotiate a convention.  The authors were trying to follow a regime of human rights protection and promotion, with the major subject being that of disability, no matter the reason for that disability.

The convention would seek to protect the individuals’ human rights, he emphasized.  The process was at a stage of “trying to vocalize” that the convention should deal with all types of disabilities -- not necessarily the causes, but the consequences of being disabled.  People who were disabled as a result of war or armed conflict, whose human rights were not respected, could use the convention as an enforceable right not to be discriminated against.  His goal was to have an instrument that responded to the needs of the disabled community, whatever the cause of their disability.

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