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Disability rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty that makes it clear that disabled people have, and should be able to enjoy, the same human rights as others.

The Convention sets an internationally recognised benchmark for the human rights of disabled people against which countries, including the UK, will be measured.

The Convention also has an additional section called the Optional Protocol. This Protocol allows individuals who believe that their rights under the Convention have been breached to bring complaints to the UN Committee established to monitor the Convention. The Committee can also undertake enquiries into alleged grave or systematic violations of the Convention.

The Convention applies to all disabled people and covers all areas of life including access to justice, personal mobility, health, education, work and recreation.

The UK ratified the Convention on 8 June 2009, and the Optional Protocol on 7 August 2009.

In line with the reporting obligations set out in the Convention, the Government will report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2011 about how the Convention is being implemented in the UK, and what progress has been made.

The EU also formally ratified the Convention in January 2011. For the first time in its history, the EU has become a party to an international human rights treaty in its own right, and is the first intergovernmental organisation to do so.