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Working Group
Draft Article 19
ACCESSIBILITY
• States Parties to this Convention shall take appropriate66
measures to identify and eliminate obstacles, and to ensure accessibility for
persons with disabilities to the built67
environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including
information and communications technologies, and to other services,68
in order to ensure the capacity of persons with disabilities to live independently
and to participate fully in all aspects of life. The focus of these measures
shall include, inter alia:
a. the construction and renovation of public69
buildings, roads and other facilities for public use, including schools, housing,
medical facilities, in-door and out-door facilities and publicly owned workplaces;
b. the development and remodelling of public transportation facilities, communications
and other services, including electronic services.
• States Parties shall also take appropriate measures to:
a. provide in public buildings and facilities signage in Braille and easy to
read and understand forms;
b. provide other forms of live assistance70
and intermediaries,71 including guides,
readers and sign language interpreters, to facilitate accessibility to public
buildings and facilities;
c. develop, promulgate and monitor implementation of minimum national standards
and guidelines for the accessibility of public facilities and services;
d. encourage private entities that provide public facilities and services to
take into account all aspects of accessibility for persons with disabilities;
e. undertake and promote research, development and production of new assistive
technologies, giving priority to affordably priced technologies;
f. promote universal design and international cooperation in the development
of standards, guidelines and assistive technologies;
g. ensure organisations of persons with disabilities are consulted when standards
and guidelines for accessibility are being developed;
h. provide training for all stakeholders on accessibility issues facing persons
with disabilities.
Footnotes:
66: Some members of the Working Group preferred
the word "progressive" in this paragraph and in the chapeau of paragraph
2. Other members were concerned with consistency with other articles of the
Convention. The Ad Hoc Committee may wish to consider alternative formulations.
67: The Ad Hoc Committee may wish to consider
whether the term "physical" should be used instead of "built",
which is its near synonym in this context.
68: The Ad Hoc Committee may wish to consider
further the issue of attempting to list comprehensively the facilities and services
covered in the chapeau to this paragraph, including whether a reference to the
"communications environment" is desirable.
69: The Ad Hoc Committee may wish to consider
the scope of the provisions in this draft article, in particular paragraphs
1(a) and (b), and 2(a), (b), (c) and (d). The Working Group questioned whether
the concept of public buildings, facilities and services should also extend
to privately owned or developed buildings, facilities and services intended
for public use, and what level of obligation States Parties should place on
private owners or developers to ensure access to persons with disabilities.
Some members of the Working Group were of the view that privately owned or developed
buildings, facilities and services should be covered by the obligations in this
draft Article, but other members wished to consider the implications of this
further.
70: 'Live assistance' includes human assistance,
such as guides and readers, and animal assistance, such as guide dogs. The Ad
Hoc Committee may wish to consider whether there is a more self-explanatory
term. The term is also used in draft Article 20(a).
71: 'Intermediaries' means people who do
not assist but who rather act as a conduit for the transmission of information
to certain groups of persons with disabilities, for example, sign language interpreters
for the hearing impaired. The term is also used in draft Article 20(a).