AD HOC COMMITTEE BEGINS NEGOTIATIONS ON TREATY ADDRESSING RIGHTS OF WORLD’S 600 MILLION PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Ad Hoc Committee on Convention                             

 on Persons with Disabilities                              

1^st Meeting (AM)

AD HOC COMMITTEE BEGINS NEGOTIATIONS ON TREATY ADDRESSING RIGHTS

OF WORLD’S 600 MILLION PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Six hundred million persons with disabilities worldwide continued to suffer from discrimination and lower standards of living, the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities was told this morning, as it opened its third session and began substantive negotiations on the text of the draft convention.

Urging the Ad Hoc Committee to continue to work towards a convention, which would make a difference in the lives of disabled persons, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Jose Antonio Ocampo, delivering the Secretary-General’s message, said the United Nations had been at the forefront of work on behalf of the rights of persons with disabilities for more than two decades and stressed that more must be done to develop a rights-based approach to disability.

Given that 80 per cent of persons with disabilities -– an estimated 400-500 million people -– lived in developing countries, where they suffered greatly from discrimination and exclusion, he encouraged the Committee to work to ensure that the convention was instrumental in fighting poverty and supporting social development, in providing access to jobs, education, health and political participation to disabled persons in developing countries.

Also urging delegations to commit themselves to persons with disabilities so as not to betray the expectations of the 600 million persons with disabilities worldwide, Committee Chairperson Luis Gallegos Chiriboga (Ecuador) went over the working methods that had been envisaged by the Committee’s bureau.  General, national statements had not been scheduled.  Instead, statements should be brief, concise and specific to the subject at hand and should not exceed five minutes.

Moreover, he added, while inputs and proposals from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were always welcome, the present negotiations would take place among Member States, which would be the parties to the convention.  However, in order to facilitate non-governmental participation, the text of the draft convention would be negotiated in open plenary meetings.

Delivering the report of the Working Group to the Ad Hoc Committee, Tim McIvor of New Zealand said the draft text prepared by the Working Group did not necessarily represent the views of its members, or of any particular delegation.  There were many differing views reflected within the draft, and its footnotes should serve as a useful guide to the main issues to be addressed by the Committee.

The mandate given to the Working Group had been complex and the task had seemed daunting, he added.  Yet the Working Group had been successful due to the fact that delegations had not come with fixed positions or prepared statements, but had listened to the points made by others and responded to them.  There had been a rich discussion, without political polarization.  Similar participation in the Ad Hoc Committee’s negotiations was to be welcomed.

Following the session’s opening, the Committee adopted the agenda and organization of work for its third session. It also decided to defer consideration of the preamble to the draft convention to a later date.

Also making a general statement on the draft convention was Xie Bohua (China), who said that the text should comprise a binding, integral international instrument, which covered the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of persons with disabilities, including the rights to life and development.  It should set out obligations of parties regarding social development and specify economic and social policies to be adopted at the national level, including for the creation of equal opportunity and a barrier-free environment for disabled persons.

The text should also take into account the differences between developed and developing countries, so as to ensure universal acceptance of the convention, he added.  Finally, the convention’s monitoring mechanism should be an expert committee -– modelled on other relevant international instruments -– to review national efforts for implementation.

For further background on the Committee’s two-week session, see Press Release SOC/4646 issued on 18 May.

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