The Right of Persons with Disabilities to Live Independently and Be Included in the Community on an Equal Basis with Others

A/HRC/RES/28/4View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2015.

What subjects does this mandate have?

11 subjects

Access to Information Accessibility Anti-Discrimination Measures Community Participation Conferences Equal Opportunity Human Rights Humanitarian Emergencies Persons with Disabilities Report Preparation Risk Management

What’s in this document?

21 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the fact that, to date, 159 States have signed and 151 States and one regional integration organization have ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and that 92 States have signed and 85 States have ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, and calls upon those States and regional integration organizations that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention and the Optional Protocol to consider doing so as a matter of priority;

Encourages States that have ratified the Convention and have submitted one or more reservations to it to initiate a process to review regularly the effect and continued relevance of such reservations, and to consider the possibility of withdrawing them;

Welcomes the thematic study on the right of persons with disabilities to live independently and be included in the community prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,⁷ and calls upon all stakeholders to consider its findings and recommendations with a view to their implementation, where appropriate;

⁷A/HRC/28/37.

Calls upon States that are not yet party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully enjoy the right to living independently and being included in the community on an equal basis with others;

Calls upon States parties to the Convention to take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate the full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of the right to live independently and be included in the community on an equal basis with others, and urges States parties, in furtherance of this objective to, inter alia:

Guarantee equal recognition before the law of persons with disabilities and ensure that they have the opportunity to exercise control over their lives on an equal basis with others;

Prevent isolation or segregation from the community of persons with disabilities, and in that regard take further measures towards their deinstitutionalization;

Provide persons with disabilities with access to a range of support services that are responsive to their individual choices, wishes and needs, including for their deinstitutionalization;

Urges States to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women and girls with disabilities and to promote gender equality in order to ensure the equal enjoyment of their rights, in particular to live independently and be fully included and participate in the community on an equal basis with others;

Encourages States to engage in international cooperation efforts aimed at enhancing their national capacities to guarantee fully the right of persons with disabilities to live independently and be included in the community on an equal basis with others, and invites the Office of the High Commissioner and relevant United Nations agencies to consider ways to foster international cooperation activities in this regard;

Recognizes the importance of international cooperation and its promotion in support of national efforts to promote the rights of persons with disabilities, including the right to live independently and be included in the community on an equal basis with others without discrimination, in this regard encourages the mobilization of public and private resources on a sustainable basis to mainstream disability in development, and underlines the need to promote and strengthen international cooperation at all levels, the exchange of good practices and partnerships for disability-inclusive development;

Calls upon States to ensure that all international cooperation is inclusive of persons with disabilities and does not contribute to creating new barriers for them;

Also calls upon States to consider becoming party to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled;

Decides that its next annual interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities will be held at its thirty-first session and that it will focus on article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies, and will have international sign interpretation and captioning;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare its annual study on the rights of persons with disabilities on article 11 of the Convention, on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies, and in consultation with States and other relevant stakeholders, regional organizations, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities, and national human rights institutions, requiring contributions to be submitted in an accessible format, and requests that such stakeholder contributions, and the study and an easy-to-read-version of it, be made available on the website of the Office, in an accessible format, prior to the thirty-first session of the Human Rights Council;

Also decides to make the resolution on the rights of persons with disabilities biennial as of the thirty-first session, with its subsequent consideration at the thirty-seventh session;

Urges States to consider further integrating and mainstreaming the perspective and rights of persons with disabilities into the work of the Human Rights Council;

Encourages representative organizations of persons with disabilities, civil society, national monitoring bodies and human rights institutions to participate actively in the debate referred to in paragraph 11 above and in regular and special sessions of the Human Rights Council and its working groups;

Invites the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to consider, in accordance with its mandate, the outcome document of the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015, in relation to article 11 of the Convention;

Requests the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner and United Nations offices to continue the progressive implementation of standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations system, also taking into account relevant provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and underlines that the Human Rights Council, including its Internet resources, should be fully accessible to persons with disabilities;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure that the work of the Office of the High Commissioner with respect to the rights of persons with disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are adequately resourced for the fulfilment of their tasks.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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