CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS
OF DISABLED PERSONS
The United Nations General Assembly has finally adopted the convention on the rights of disabled person....
The United Nations General Assembly has finally adopted the convention on the rights of disabled person.
The Former Seccretary General of the UN qualified the event as « historic ». After close to five years of negotiations an international convention for the protection and promotion of the rights of disabled was adopted by a General Assemby Committee on Friday 13 of December 2006. “The disabled persons have up till now lacked any adequate protection of their rights” Kofi Annan said in a message in New York, emphasising the hope that this treaty would bring
“The beginning of a new era in which they will have the same rights and opportunities as any human being”. Consequently the Secretary General invite all member States “to ratify the convention and to ensure it immediate application”. As reminder the UN General Assembly has finally daopted by consensus the first convention concerning the rights of the disabled persons which has as objective to “promote, protect and ensure full and equal enjoyment by the disabled persons of all fundamental rights and liberties”
This text is the first binding international legal instrument in the area of human rights in the 21st Century marks an important turning point in the perception of the disabled in all aspects of daily life.
By this resolution state parties will at least in principle have to engage in guaranteeing and promoting these rights “without any form of discrimination founded on disability”, especially in developing countries with about 450 million disabled persons.
Talking about the African continent Mark Malloch Brown, Vice Secreatary General of the UNO said “the disabled persons have often been objects of embarrassment or at most supercilious charity”. “Societies have done all that they could neither been seen nor heard”, “We know that change is accelerates once the laws are in place. Once the convention is adiopted, signed and ratified, it it have an impact on national legislations”he adds.
The president of the General Asssembly Sheikha Haya al-Khalifa in his part mentioned that “Disabled persons have very often had to manage not only their disability but the indifference of the decision makers”. She also appealed that the convention provides “ a new drive for cultural change so necessary in the way the world perceives disabled persons”.
The convention and its optional protocol will be opened for signing at the headquaters of the UNO in New York on 30 March 2007
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