Asia Pacific Regional Seminar - Opening Speech, Venus Ilagan, DPI

Speech at the opening of the Regional Inter-Governmental Meeting for an International Convention to Promote and Protect the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 4 November 2003, Beijing, China

By Venus M. Ilagan Chairperson, Disabled Peoples' International

Your excellencies, distinguished participants to this conference, friends, ladies and gentlemen: Good morning.

First of all, I wish to convey to you warm greetings from the World Council of Disabled Peoples' International - a global federation of national cross-disability organizations of disabled persons with consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

We in DPI are very pleased and appreciative of the various initiatives of the Asia-Pacific region in support of the ongoing efforts for an international convention to promote and protect the rights of disabled persons. We have no doubts that the partnership among the UN-ESCAP, various national governments and non-governmental organizations - including those of disabled persons, has made this region one of the more active contributors of knowledge and inputs to the ongoing work for a disability rights convention.

Human dignity is the anchor norm of human rights. Each individual has inestimable value. People, including those with disabilities, must not be valued based solely on their economic usefulness to their communities and societies but on their inherent self-worth among other merits.

Human equality, a related value, is central to the system of basic human freedoms postulated by human rights law. Its core premise is that all persons not only posses inestimable inherent self-worth but are also inherently equal in terms of self-worth, regardless of their difference. Thus, distinctions stemming from factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view such as race, gender, age or disability should not far outweigh the value of human dignity inherent to the person himself or herself.

For decades, the United Nations pursued the goal of full participation and equality of persons with disabilities, capped by the adoption in the UN General Assembly in 1982 of the World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons - a collective expression of the concern and commitment of the international community to the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities. Unfortunately to this day, the goal of full participation, the equalization of opportunities and respect for the human rights of disabled persons remains an elusive dream that has yet to become a reality.

Until now, the majority of the estimated 600 million people with disabilities worldwide, seventy percent or 420 million of whom live in the developing countries, and all of whom are entitled to the full range of human rights protection elaborated in international human rights law, continue to suffer inequalities, discrimination and in many cases, even inhuman treatment because of their disabilities.

In theory, disabled peopled are covered by the existing international human rights framework in the same manner and to the same extent as all people. In reality, however, the framework is deficient for persons with disabilities in several respects:

They do not adequately address the unique physical, social, economic and legal circumstances of people with disabilities, and in particular, the common barriers to the enjoyment of their basic human rights such as the right to education, employment, health care, housing and the like;
The current framework is not effective in identifying practices that lead to severe rights abuses against disabled people; and
Many of the institutions tasked to ensure enjoyment of PWDs of their basic rights and entitlements are under-resourced and often lack a critical disability rights perspective.

Let me also stress that as the work for a thematic convention to promote and protect the rights of people with disabilities progresses, it is important for everyone to become more aware and conscious about making sure that rights of disabled women and girls be taken into consideration - they being the most vulnerable yet the least protected among disabled persons. Women and girls with disabilities must be afforded the same protection and benefits from a future thematic convention for the promotion and protection of the human rights of disabled persons.

Having said that, DPI believes that a UN convention must be a human rights instrument based on the principles of equal opportunity, equal rights, equal treatment and non-discrimination. It must be comprehensive in scope and one that addresses the economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights of disabled persons.

Persons with disabilities, no matter how their disabilities are defined or perceived, have the claim to all and the same human rights that have been articulated in human rights laws. This convention is not to invent new rights for disabled persons but to ensure the guarantee of the rights already recognized for all people by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other core human rights treaties.

Finally, I wish to thank the UN-ESCAP, the Government of China, various governments and non-governmental organizations in the region for your commitment and support to the work for a thematic convention to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities not only in this region but the world over. With your unwavering commitment and support to the work for a convention, disabled persons can look forward with greater optimism to a future that promises better treatment and equal opportunities for all those with disabilities.

Thank you.

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	UN ESCAP/CDPF Regional Meeting on an International Convention on Disability Beijing, China, 4-7 November 2003