The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Disability-Inclusive Digital Technologies and Infrastructure, Including Transport and Housing

A/HRC/RES/61/9View 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 2026.

What subjects does this mandate have?

10 subjects

Accessibility Anniversaries Anti-Discrimination Measures Crime Prevention Digital Technology Housing Human Rights Persons with Disabilities Physical Infrastructure Transport

What’s in this document?

34 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the fact that, to date, 192 States and one regional integration organization have ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and that 108 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 on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 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 reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the rights of persons with disabilities and digital technologies and devices, including assistive technologies,⁴ and on disability-inclusive infrastructure, including transport and housing,⁵ and calls upon all stakeholders to consider the findings and recommendations made in those reports with a view to implementing them;

⁴A/HRC/58/33.

⁵A/HRC/61/32.

Calls upon all States to take appropriate measures to ensure access to affordable and accessible digital technologies and devices, including quality assistive technologies, as well as accessible infrastructure, including transport and housing, so as to guarantee the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities and ensure community inclusion of persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others and without discrimination, applying an approach that is gender-responsive and age-sensitive, by, for example:

Through close consultations with and the active involvement of persons with disabilities, including through their representative organizations, in all design and decision-making processes related to infrastructure, including housing and transport, as well as digital technologies, including assistive technologies;

Adopting accessibility standards, including universal design, with timelines and oversight mechanisms for transport and housing that are fully aligned with international human rights obligations, consistent with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

Duly considering disability-related recommendations made by international human rights mechanisms, including human rights treaty bodies and the universal periodic review, related to national transport, housing and infrastructure planning;

Taking measures, such as legislative, administrative and other measures, to address stigmatization and discrimination against persons with disabilities in transport and housing, including capacity development for public officials, transport staff and housing providers;

Taking steps towards establishing transport systems that are accessible for all persons with disabilities, including in rural areas, through investment in adapted vehicles, accessible stations and ticketing systems, as well as paratransit, on-demand and door-to-door services;

Integrating disability-inclusive infrastructure that is gender- and age- responsive into national development plans, policies and budgets, international cooperation and financing for development, where appropriate;

Prohibiting all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities, in the context of adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, by public and private entities;

Leveraging digital and assistive technologies to enhance accessibility and service delivery across transport and housing infrastructure, ensuring that all digital systems are accessible, affordable and compliant with international human rights law and standards;

Encouraging the establishment of rights-centred e-governance frameworks and regulation of digital technologies that ensure accessibility, anti-discrimination measures and transparency in data management regarding privacy rights and equality, ensuring the participation of persons with disabilities in policy co-design;

Encouraging the establishment of independent oversight bodies to monitor e-governance systems, including their use of artificial intelligence, ensuring sufficient data protection and transparent data practices and aligning digital platforms with human rights law;

Respecting the autonomy of persons with disabilities to have control over the support they receive, including through digital assistive products;

Integrating assistive technologies into the design and budgets of care and support systems, addressing their limitations and benefits to enhance independence, access to environments and communication and reducing reliance on human support, particularly from women disproportionately involved in unpaid care and support work;

Raising awareness by implementing targeted public education campaigns to bridge the knowledge gap on assistive technologies, partnering with organizations of persons with disabilities to leverage their digital platforms to broaden outreach and empowering persons with disabilities to make informed choices, increase demand and stimulate investment in accessible, affordable and high-quality assistive products;

Exploring innovative, inclusive and practical digital and assistive technology solutions, including through the accessible digitalization of cultural heritage, to guarantee access by and the participation of persons with disabilities in cultural life and heritage and for the protection and promotion of disability-specific culture, such as the collaborative approach followed by the Virtual Museum on Cultural Heritage;

Encouraging technology companies and public-private partnerships in transport, housing and digital infrastructure to include accessibility, affordability, non-discrimination and inclusion standards, in accordance with international human rights law and standards, including the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights;

Recognizing the important role of community-based organizations, cooperatives, non-profit service providers and organizations of persons with disabilities in delivering accessible transport, housing, digital technologies and support services and emphasizing the centrality of co-design, co-creation and the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in the planning, development, implementation and monitoring of such infrastructure and services;

Encourages all relevant business enterprises, in particular those involved in the provision of disability-inclusive digital technologies, including assistive technology, and infrastructure, including transport and housing, to conduct human rights impact assessments to ensure maximum respect for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, with the active involvement of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations;

Calls upon States to engage in international cooperation efforts at all levels to promote disability-inclusive digital technologies and infrastructure, including transport and housing, and to ensure that all international cooperation and humanitarian action are inclusive of persons with disabilities and do not contribute to creating new barriers for them, as well as to encourage the mobilization of public and private resources on a sustainable basis to mainstream the rights of persons with disabilities into development, and invites the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant United Nations agencies, and other donor mechanisms and partnerships, to consider ways to foster international cooperation activities in that regard, in close consultation with persons with disabilities and their representative organizations;

Encourages the Office of the High Commissioner to share its technical expertise with other United Nations agencies involved with disability-inclusive digital technologies and infrastructure, including transport and housing, in order to promote the integration of a human rights-based approach to persons with disabilities;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to present an oral report to the Human Rights Council on the implementation of the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy across its programmes and operations at its sixty-fifth and sixty-eighth sessions, with international sign interpretation and captioning, and also requests the Office to make its report to the Secretary-General on the Strategy publicly available in an easy-to-read version and in an accessible format;

Decides that its next annual interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities will be held at its sixty-fourth session, and will focus on the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: lessons learned and challenges in the development of human rights standards and norms, and will have international sign interpretation and captioning;

Also decides to hold, at its sixty-seventh session, an interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities, which will focus on measures to prevent all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse of persons with disabilities, and will have international sign interpretation and captioning;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner to prepare its next annual thematic study on the rights of persons with disabilities on the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: lessons learned and challenges in the development of human rights standards and norms, and to prepare its subsequent study on measures to prevent all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse of persons with disabilities , in consultation with States and other relevant stakeholders, regional organizations, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities and other relevant special procedure mandate holders, 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, the studies themselves and an easy-to-read-version of them be made available on the website of the Office, in an accessible format, prior to the sixty-fourth and sixty-seventh sessions of the Human Rights Council;

Encourages the task force on secretariat services and accessibility for persons with disabilities to report orally to the Human Rights Council on its work and on the progress made in the implementation of its accessibility plan;

Urges States to consider further integrating and mainstreaming the perspective and rights of persons with disabilities into the work of the Human Rights Council, such as by mandating international sign interpretation and captioning for all meetings of the Council;

Regrets that, due to the United Nations budgetary and liquidity crisis, the Secretary-General was not able to prepare and submit to the Human Rights Council, at its fifty-ninth session, a study defining the administrative procedures and budget required to make all Council resolutions accessible, including in easy-to-understand language, as accessibility resources and tools for persons with disabilities, in consultation with and ensuring the active engagement and participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations, as well as relevant United Nations entities, including the Office of the High Commissioner, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, and other stakeholders such as civil society and representative organizations;

Encourages representative organizations of persons with disabilities, civil society, national mechanisms as described in article 33 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and national human rights institutions to participate actively in the debates referred to in paragraphs 9 and 10 above and in regular and special sessions of the Human Rights Council and its working groups;

Requests the Secretary-General, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations offices to continue to work collaboratively on the progressive implementation of standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations system, 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 is adequately resourced for the fulfilment of their tasks;

Decides to remain seized of the matter.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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