Let the World Know
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"Let the World Know"

Report of a Seminar on Human Rights and Disability
Almåsa Conference Centre (Stockholm, November 5-9, 2000)

Published by the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Disability
of the United Nations Commission for Social Development © 2001
e-mail: un-spec.rapp@telia.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements *

I Introduction *

II Background to the Seminar *

III Timing of the Seminar: An Opportune Moment *

IV Purpose of the International Seminar: From Rhetoric to Reality *

V Organization of the Seminar *

VI General Directions for Mainstreaming the Human Right of Persons with Disabilities *

VII Developing an Overall Structure for Reporting Violations of the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities *

VIII Understanding What Amounts to an Infringement of Human Rights *

IX Building a System for Dealing with Infringements of Human Rights *

X Making it work: Developing Instruments for Documenting Infringements of Human Rights: The Five Working Groups Report *

Documenting Individual Cases *
Documenting Legal Cases/Jurisprudence *
Documenting the Media *
Documenting legislation *
Documenting Programmes, Services and Practices *

XI. Additional General Recommendations to Strengthen the Use of International Instruments on Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities

XII Concluding Remarks: From little acorns great oaks grow *

ANNEX A: List of Participants (including observers, and support staff)

VI. General Directions for Mainstreaming the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Seminar participants agreed on the importance of mainstreaming the human rights of persons with disabilities throughout the United Nations system, especially human rights bodies and mechanisms.

Participants noted that the Special Rapporteur on Disability of the Commission for Social Development, Dr. Bengt Lindqvist, and the panel of experts, who was appointed to monitor implementation of the Standard Rules, has managed to achieve meaningful progress putting forward the issue of disability.

The participants recalled that NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) have direct access to United Nations organs and bodies.

Drawing on the provisions of paragraph 30 of the Commission on Human Rights resolution 2000/51 on Human Rights and Disability, the seminar agreed that:

Human rights treaty monitoring bodies must be encouraged to review and amend their existing guidelines to ensure that the rights of persons with disabilities that fall within the scope of individual treaties are fully taken up by the respective treaty bodies in their work.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights should be encouraged to continue and strengthen its efforts to ensure that States parties report on the measures they have taken in response to the Committee’s General Comment No 5 on the rights of persons with disabilities, to include disability issues in its dialogue with States parties, and to ensure that States parties respect and ensure the human rights of persons with disabilities as required by the Covenant.
Organizations of persons with disabilities, family members and/or advocates should consider taking advantage of the opportunities for formal participation in United Nations activities by applying for consultative status with the ECOSOC. The United Nations could encourage this by ensuring that disability groups are aware of the advantages of such status and the procedure for applying for status, and assisting them to apply. The criteria used and the procedures should take into account the special difficulties that DPOs may have in accessing international fora and the need to ensure that representative organizations of persons with disabilities, parents and advocates are granted consultative status.

The Special Rapporteur on Disability together with the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Department for Economic and Social Affairs should examine ways to strengthen the existing website on Human Rights and Disability, as well as ensuring the widest possible dissemination of all relevant documents and information in accessible formats.

The efforts made at the international level towards ensuring human rights of persons with disabilities should be maintained. In that regard, and in view of the termination of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate in 2002, it was suggested that the Commission on Human Rights should appoint, at its 58^th session (2002), a Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Disability in relation to the human rights of persons with disabilities, with a mandate similar to existing Special Rapporteurs of the Commission to examine, inter alia, the effective enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of persons with disabilities, in order to maintain momentum.

United Nations agencies and bodies, such as World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), should be encouraged to pay particular attention to the issue of disability in their activities as well as in their programmes.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) should include issues of disability and human rights as an integral part of all its work, and in particular, should consider ways of integrating the question of disability in the design of its technical co-operation programmes.
UNESCO should include issues of disability and human rights in the series of activities it is conducting as part of the International Decade for Human Rights Education.

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