Expert Group Meeting and Seminar on an International Convention to Protect and Promote the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities
Bangkok, Thailand, 2-4 June 2003

UN Standard Rules as Tools to Promote Human Rights.

Yukiko Oka Nakanishi
Asia Disability Institute/DPI-Japan

INTRODUCTION

The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities is an important document, which was adopted unanimously at the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. It deserves our close attention in the process to elaborating an international convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.

This paper is attempted to highlight some features of the Rules and lesson learned from the Rules. We need to learn the way, in which the Standard Rules have been implemented and monitored, in order to make the strong Comprehensive and Integral International Convention to Promote and Protect the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities

CONTENTS OF THE RULES

The purpose of the Rules is to secure the rights of all persons with disabilities to the same opportunities as other citizens. The objective is to achieve full participation and equal opportunities. The method to use is to identify and remove remaining obstacles and governments are responsible for the necessary measures. It includes an introduction, a preamble, 22 different Rules and a description of the monitoring system, summarizes the contents of the World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons and also takes account of some new aspects, which were emphasized during the decade. The 22 Rules themselves are divided into three sections: preconditions for participation, target areas for equal participation and implementation measures.Preconditions for participation
1. Awareness raising
2. Medical care
3. Rehabilitation
4. Support service
Target areas for equal participation
5. Accessibility
6. Education
7. Employment
8. Income maintenance and social security
9.Family life and personal integrity
10.Culture
11. Recreation and sports
12. Religion
Implementation measures
13. Information and research
14. Policy making and planning
15. Legislation
16. Economic policies
17. Co-ordination of work
18. Organizations of persons with disabilities
19. Personnel training
20. National monitoring and evaluation of disability programmes in the implementation of the Rules
21. Technical and economic co-operation
22. International co-operation.

HOW THE RULES WERE USED

1. Model law to establish national anti-discrimination legislation

The rights-based perspectives on persons with disabilities are manifested in the Standard Rules. Persons with disabilities organized meetings to study the rules either for analyzing their existing national laws or drafting a law on disability. According to the Rules, citizens with disabilities should be accorded the same rights and obligations as others. Although equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities still remains a challenge, the Rules could make the Government to aware of the fact that persons with disabilities are citizens with equal rights and obligations.

The Rules provided basis to the governments for drafting new laws for persons with disabilities that includes right-based perspective. In the past two decades, many governments enacted disability laws. The Asia-pacific region alone saw the enactment of the laws, including the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Disabled Persons in 1990, the Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons Act of Thailand in 1991, the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons of the Philippines in 1992, the Persons with disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act in 1995, the Act for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities OF Sri Lanka in 1996, Ordinance on Disabled Persons of Viet Nam in1998 and the Disability Welfare Act of Bangladesh in 2001

2. Tools to promote human rights

There is a strong mechanism in UN to promote and monitor the implementation of the Rules. The special rapporteur with disability experience was appointed. And at the same time a panel of experts was established, that is composed of 10 representatives from six major international non-governmental organizations in the field of disability, NGOs fully utilize this mechanism and ensure their rights based on their examinations of the implementation of the rules.

One of the examinations was done through the index for monitoring, developed by the Danish Council of Organizations of Disabled People. It consists of twenty-five questions about the Rules. Each question has to be answered by rating the degree of fulfillment on a scale from 0 to 6. The maximum is 150 points. Emphasis is given to Access (Rule 5), Education (Rule 6) and Employment (Rule 7), because they are directly related to basic rights of disabled persons. By adding all the 25 scores and dividing the total by 1.5, a country's result is obtained. It was tested at the UN Summit on Social Development at Copenhagen in 1995. The questionnaire was recognized as meaningful reference to a level of disabled persons` rights and opportunities at both national and local levels.

"Tool Box - A guide for making a disability policy program in your local community", a booklet written by the National Council on Disability in Finland, provides guide It intends to be used by persons with disabilities in improving accessibility of their local communities through checking the degree of the implementation of each Rule. It is very helpful for all persons with disabilities in making themselves familiar with the concept to exercise the same rights and obligations as other citizens, since the Rules offer an instrument for policy-making and action,

A training workshop is also an effective measure to promote and monitor implementation of the Rules. The best material is a set of CD-ROMs on the Standard Rules, that was developed by Ms. Maria Cristina Sara Serrano of the Worldenable. You should be familiar with her who facilitated our pre-conference online discussion. She was also a DPI representative to UN in New York. I would like to share a part of it with you. You can also take a look at the content of CD-ROMs at their website (http://www.worldenable.net/standardrules/sld001.htm)

Need to Revise the Rules

The Rules play an important role in influencing the promotion, formulation and evaluation of policies, plans, programs and actions at the local, national, regional and international levels, including current discussion on the convention of human rights. But there are certain areas that were not covered. For example, there is no rule that deals with housing. Children with disabilities are not sufficiently treated. It is also true in case of women with disabilities and such groups as persons with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. It has been pointed out that the Rules do not include a strategy for improving living conditions of persons with disabilities in extreme poverty. In addition, persons with disabilities in refugee or other emergency situations are not mentioned in the Rules, although most regions have experienced wars and internal conflicts for the last decade. In our region, we cannot yet prevent war-related causes of disabilities, including landmine and chemical weapons.

A proposal was made by the Special Rapporteur to revise the Rules at the panel of experts for the Standard Rules in 2001. It, for example, tries to add the new explanation of disability described in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, government's support to personal assistant programme and the recognition of voices of children and youth with disabilities

The Rules are still vital for us. Since it seems the focus of discussion at the panel shifted from the revision to the establishment of the convention, we tend to forget to revise the Rules. They are still very important instruments. Fortunately we have the Biwako Millennium Framework, that emphasizes the areas which are directly related to our human rights, e.g. education, training and employment, access to built environments and public transport, and access to information and communications. With the Rules and Biwako Millennium Framework in mind, we can talk out the content of the Comprehensive and Integral International Convention to Promote and Protect the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities.

Conclusion

I believe you are already aware of the legal status of the Standard Rules. Governments need not to ratify it, because the Rules are not a convention. International organizations of/for persons with disabilities lobbied to make the Rules as a legally binding convention. It means the governments have only a moral obligation, but no legal obligation, even if they accept the Rules. They have no obligation to report about the implementation.

The Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons was extended for another decade, 2003 to 2012. With ESCAP, we are committed to promote inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society for persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific. The Biwako Millennium Framework was drafted in the same spirit of the Standard Rules by ESCAP, as the guideline for action to be taken by the member governments and NGOs, especially self-help organizations of persons with disabilities, for the implementation of 7 priority areas with 21 targets and 17 strategies. Our efforts for the realization of the goals of the Biwako Millennium Framework in cooperation with governments will lead us to the establishment of the convention.

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Last updated 06/01/03. Contact: facilitator@worldenable.net