UN Enable: Promoting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The United Nations (UN) has launched a new web site, UN Enable, focused on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It is available at http://www.un.org/disabilities/

The convention is intended to ensure that people with disabilities are able to enjoy human rights in the same way as everyone else. Countries that choose to sign, ratify, and then implement the convention will then become obligated to abolish laws that discriminate against disabled people and write laws that protect their rights instead. The convention includes provision for protecting disabled people from torture, loss of liberty, and other abuses; and for ensuring that disabled people have equal access to justice (including court systems), transportation, and public services.

In particular, don’t miss the new UN handbook (3.2 Mb) for parliamentarians on the CRPD. Although targeted at members of country parliaments, it may also be a useful tool for disability advocates who wish to work with or pressure their governments to sign, ratify, and implement the convention. It explains the convention and the process for ratifying it in greath depth. We Can Do posted an announcement about the handbook in a prior post.

In yet another earlier post, We Can Do announced a pair of ratification and implementation toolkits from Disabled People International targeted at advocates. These toolkits explain the convention and the ratification process at a more basic level and advises organizations in ways they can become involved.

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