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Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
and Optional Protocol

 

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. There were 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and 1 ratification of the Convention. This is the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations. It marks a “paradigm shift” in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities.

The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.

 

• Read the complete text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

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Convention PDF: English | Français | Español | عربي | Русский | 汉语
Optional Protocol PDF: English | Français | Español | عربي | Русский | 汉语

• Read the resolution adopted by the General Assembly for the Convention

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• The Convention in Brief:

Guiding Principles of the Convention

Monitoring of the Implementation

Human Rights and Development

• Timeline of events

• List of States and Regional Integration Organizations that have signed the Convention and the Optional Protocol

• Quick list of Signatories

• List of States and Regional Integration Organizations that have ratified the Convention and the Optional Protocol

• Video from the Opening for Signature ceremony, Press Conference and Media Stakeout

• Statements made at the Opening for Signature Ceremony on 30 March 2007

• Information for Official Delegations from the Office of Legal Affairs

• Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

• Frequently Asked Questions