ADHOC COMMITTEE
ON AN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION

Background paper on the international convention for the protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities

I. In view of the growing number of persons with disabilities in the world, now over 600 million, and the marginalization, discrimination and lack of proper welfare services from which those persons suffer, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, at its fifty-sixth session, a resolution (A/Res/56/168) on the establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee, open to participation by all Member States, for the preparation of a draft international convention for the protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. The Ad Hoc Committee held its first meeting in July 2002.

II. Within the framework of that resolution, which included an invitation to the United Nations regional commissions to hold conferences and seminars in order to obtain guidance from States regarding their views and information on their specificities for the purposes of the international convention, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), in cooperation with the League of Arab States, the Arab Organization for Disabled People and the Ministry of Social Affairs of Lebanon, held an Arab Regional Conference on Norms and Standards Related to Development and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 27 to 29 May 2003.

The results of the Conference are summarized in two documents:

A. The Beirut Declaration

The Declaration includes the following points:

• The obstacles that prevent persons with disabilities from obtaining their rights are structural, institutional, legislative and procedural;
• The difficulties faced by societies in general and Arab societies in particular are attributable to high poverty rates, escalating wars, a lack of social awareness of disability issues and the related causes and lack of empowerment of women, all of which have a direct negative impact on persons with disabilities, affecting employment, health and social security; The disability issue must be tied to the human rights issue;
• The growing and more effective role of disabled persons in defending their cause must be encouraged;
• The Arab States should be invited to participate actively in the drafting of the convention and hence to sign it; the convention should be tied to an international monetary and material support project to assist developing countries in ensuring its implementation and machinery for implementation and effective monitoring should be provided;
At the end of the Declaration, reference is made to the election of Sheikha Hessa bint Khalifa as Special Rapporteur on disability of the United Nations Commission for Social Development.

B. Recommendations

• The articles of the international convention should be drafted in decisive, strong and binding terms;
• An item should be added on the need to prevent discrimination against the families of persons with disabilities and persons working with them;
• A review should be made of regional and international treaties, conventions and other instruments that deal with disability and disabled persons so as to enrich the international convention with ideas from them;
• States should be compelled to established national and local mechanisms for follow-up of the implementation of the convention;
• ESCWA, the League of Arab States and the international agencies concerned should be invited to hold a number of preparatory meetings after the second meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on the convention with a view to arriving at consensus on the articles of the convention.

III. It should be pointed out that, on the basis of the resolution of the Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs, the Council's Technical Secretariat, in coordination and cooperation with the Arab Organization for Disabled People, the Ministry of Social Affairs of Lebanon and ESCWA, held a conference on disability in October 2002 on the theme "Reality and Hope", one outcome of which was the launching of the Arab Decade for People with Disabilities. The conference dealt with eleven key areas, i.e.: health; legislation; education; acquisition of skills and employment; women with disabilities; children with disabilities; disability and the elderly; globalization, poverty and disability; access and transportation; sports and leisure; the media and consciousness-raising.

At its twenty-second session held in November 2002, the Council stressed the importance of launching the Decade as a ten-year strategy and charged the Technical Secretariat with integrating the observations made by States in that regard with a view to their presentation to the Council at its twenty-third session and subsequent submission to the League Council at the summit level for adoption.

The Arab Decade for People with Disabilities is an extension of Arab, regional and international efforts in the area of advancement of persons with disabilities and is in accord with the international convention currently being drafted, which is aimed at the protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.

Administration of the Technical Secretariat of the
Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs

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© United Nations, 2003-04
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Division for Social Policy and Development