Human rights

Representatives of United Nations agencies, programmes and offices shed light today on their respective strategies and action plans to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as the Conference of States Parties to the treaty concluded its second session.

While giving people with disabilities the same legal rights and access to justice as the non-disabled was a formidable challenge, it was crucial to implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, speakers said today as the Conference of States Parties to the treaty continued its second session.

United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro urged Member States this morning to without delay sign, ratify and implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities -- a landmark document that provided a solid norm for advancing the human rights of the 650 million people worldwide with disabilities -- as well as its Optional Protocol.

Countries bound by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will meet in New York on 24 September to explore practical means of strengthening efforts to protect the rights of the 650 million persons with disabilities worldwide, as disability rights have gained new ground since the Convention’s 2006 entry into force.

Following a recent mission to Bolivia and Paraguay, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released two reports today expressing grave concern over forced labour suffered by indigenous peoples in the Chaco regions of those two countries.

A report issued by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paints a disturbing picture of sexual violence used against civilians in armed conflicts and their aftermath.

The following is a statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, on the importance of the responsibility to protect in saving lives:

In a bid to transform the historic 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into “living law”, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues closed its eighth session today by adopting a text that invited States to adopt or endorse the document, substantively inform the Forum about its implementation and effectiveness, and recommended that they do the same in core reports to human rights treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review.

The semi-slavery of the Guarani and other indigenous peoples of the Chaco region must swiftly end, with their grievances redressed and land rights restored, members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues told delegates today, revealing findings from their mission to Paraguay and Bolivia.

All of humanity must work together to re-establish harmony and unity with the natural environment by implementing the Kyoto Protocol and creating a global governance system that respected and supported vegetable, mineral, animal, human and cosmic life, Nicolas Lucas Ticum, a Maya priest from Guatemala and a researcher on the Calendario Maya, told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as it continued its eighth session.