Since its establishment eight decades ago, the United Nations has played a central role in raising awareness about and advancing the rights of persons with disabilities, who constitute approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population and overwhelmingly live in the Global South. In 2006, the combined efforts of the international community and the global disability rights movement culminated in the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a landmark international treaty codifying the obligations of States to promote, protect and respect the rights of persons living with disabilities.
The central, transformative pledge of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘leave no one behind’ cannot be achieved without the inclusion of the estimated one billion people around the world living today with a disability. Their heightened vulnerability to multidimensional poverty is compounded by many barriers they face in their daily lives, including a lack of accessibility in physical and virtual environments, stigma and discrimination, a lack of access to energy, assistive technologies, and rehabilitation, and a lack of measures designed to promote independent living. Unless these barriers are dismantled, persons with disabilities will remain disproportionately excluded from full participation in economic, social, cultural, civic, and political life, undermining the realisation of their rights, and the achievement of the SDGs.
The international human rights system, especially the three main compliance mechanisms (the Universal Periodic Review – UPR, Treaty Bodies, and Special Procedures) represents, in principle, a powerful motor of change, driving progress with the fulfilment of States’ international human rights obligations and commitments, including obligations under the CRPD, and thereby also accelerating progress towards the SDGs leaving no one behind. To understand the degree to which the human rights system is fulfilling this role, and helping secure implementation and on the ground impact, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and the Universal Rights Group (URG) have, over the past two years, conducted a global analysis to assess and understand the impact of the international human rights system on the enjoyment of the rights of persons with disabilities. The results of that analysis are presented in this report.
Read the full report here.
(available in English only)
