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Workshop Background : Aide Memoire
UN ESCAP Workshop on Regional Follow-up to the Fifth Session and
Preparation for the Sixth Session of the Ad Hoc Committee on an
International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and
Dignity of Persons with Disabilities (26-27 July 2005, at UNCC Bangkok)
At the global level
General
Assembly resolution 56/168 of 19 December 2001 established an Ad Hoc
Committee "to consider proposals for a comprehensive and integral
international convention to promote and protect the rights and dignity of
persons with disabilities, based on the holistic approach in the work done
in the fields of social development, human rights and non-discrimination and
taking into account the recommendations of the
Commission on Human
Rights and the
Commission for Social Development.
The resolution also calls upon States, in cooperation with regional
commissions, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the
Division for Social Policy and Development and the Special Rapporteur on
Disability of the Commission for Social Development, to hold
regional meetings and seminars to contribute to the work of the Ad Hoc
Committee by making recommendations regarding the content and practical
measures that should be considered in the international convention."
The resolution also, "invites States, relevant bodies and organizations
of the United Nations system, including relevant human rights treaty bodies,
the regional commissions, the Special Rapporteur on disability of the
Commission for Social Development, as well as intergovernmental and
non-governmental organizations with an interest in the matter to make
contributions to the work entrusted to the Ad Hoc Committee, based on
the practice of the United Nations."
The
first session of the Ad Hoc Committee took place from 29 July to 9
August 2002, at United Nations Headquarters at New York. The
second
session was held from 16-27 June 2003 at the United Nations Headquarters
in New York. The
third session
took place from 24 May to 4 June 2004 and the
fourth session
from 23 August to 3 September 2004.
At its
second
session, 16-25 June 2003, the Ad Hoc Committee decided to establish a
Working Group with the aim of preparing and presenting a draft text of a
convention, which would be the basis for negotiation by Member States. The
Working Group
met in New York from 5 to 16 January 2004.
In its
Resolution 58/246, the General Assembly decided that the Working Group
would present its draft text to the Ad Hoc Committee at its third session
from 24 May to 4 June 2004, and that the Ad Hoc Committee would start its
negotiation on a draft convention during that session. The Resolution also
decided that the Ad Hoc Committee would hold a fourth session prior to the
59th session of the General Assembly from 23 August- 3 September 2004.
At its 14th Day, on 27 June 2003, the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive
and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the
Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities decided to establish a
Working Group
with the aim of preparing and presenting a draft text which would be the
basis for negotiation by Member States and observers at the Ad Hoc Committee
of the draft convention. It also decided that “the Working Group shall meet
intersessionally at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for one
session of ten working days early in 2004, and will present the outcome of
its work on a draft text to the Ad Hoc Committee at its third session”. That
decision was endorsed by the General Assembly in its resolution 58/246 of 23
December 2003.
The Working Group is comprised of representatives of the following
Governments, non-governmental organizations and national human rights
institution:
- Cameroon, Canada, China, Colombia, Comoros, Ecuador, Germany, India,
Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand,
Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Serbia and Montenegro,
Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Uganda, Venezuela
- Disability Australia Limited, Disabled Peoples’ International,
Disabled Peoples’ International (Africa), European Disability Forum,
Inclusion International, Inter-American Institute on Disability, Landmine
Survivors Network, Rehabilitation International, World Blind Union, World
Federation of the Deaf, World Federation of the Deafblind, World Network
of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
- South African Human Rights Commission (representing national human
rights institutions)
The Working Group held its
first session
at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 5 to 16 January 2004. In the
course of its session, the Working Group held 20 formal meetings as well as
a number of informal consultations. The session of the Working Group was
opened by the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, Ambassador Luis Gallegos
Chiriboga (Ecuador). At its 1st meeting, on 5 January, the Working Group
endorsed the appointment by the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, on the
basis of consultations, of Ambassador Don MacKay (New Zealand) as
Coordinator of the Working Group.
The third Session of the Ad Hoc Committee was held from 24 May to 4 June
2004 at New York, and the fourth session was held in August and September
2004.
UNESCAP participated in the third Session of the Ad Hoc Committee. The
purpose of this regional workshop is to provide a regional forum on
discussing key issues of follow up to both third and fourth session of the
Ad Hoc Committee at the ESCAP regional level. This two-day workshop (12-13
October 2004,
www.worldenable.net/convention2004/) is hosted and organized by UN ESCAP
in close collaboration with the newly formed regional network of NGOs,
namely the
Asia-Pacific Disability Forum, APDF, in conjunction with the ESCAP regional
workshop on monitoring the implementation of the
Biwako
Mellennium Framework for Action for an Inclusive, Barrier-Free Society and
Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific
(BMF), to be held immediately after this Workshop, on 15-16 October
2004, at UNCC Bangkok.
At the regional level
The Governments, UNESCAP and NGOs worked together to implement the Agenda
for Action for the
Asian
and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons from 1993 to 2002. In 2001, the
Commission, through its resolution 58/4 of 22 May 2002, titled "Promoting an
inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society for people with
disabilities in the Asian and Pacific region in the twenty-first century"
renewed the
Asian and Pacific Decade from 2003 to 2012. The Decade's action-oriented
guidelines for Governments, "The Biwako Millennium Framework for Action
towards Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with
Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (BMF)" urged Governments to support and
contribute to the work of the Ad Hoc Committee.
In pursuance of the above-mentioned resolutions and the regional mandate,
UNESCAP organized the
Expert Group Meeting and Seminar on an International Convention to Protect
and Promote the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities from 2
to 4 June 2003. The Meeting's outcome is the
Bangkok Recommendations, a comprehensive set of recommendations on the
proposed convention. The Bangkok Recommendations were presented at the
Second
Session of the Ad Hoc Committee, which was held at New York from 16 to
27 June 2003.
The Ad Hoc Committee unanimously agreed to elaborate a thematic
convention on disability and decided on formulating a Working Group to
prepare a draft text of the convention for negotiations at the next session
of the Ad Hoc Committee in 2004.
The Bangkok Recommendations were submitted to the Second Session of the
Ad Hoc Committee, held from 16 to 27 June 2003 in New York, where Member
States unanimously agreed to start elaborating a proposed convention.
In 2003, two phases of
ESCAP Workshop on Women
and Disability: Promoting Full Participation of Women with Disabilities in
the Process of Elaboration on an International Convention to Promote and
Protect the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities were held 18
to 22 August 2003 and 13 October 2003. These workshops on disability and
gender produced a
Statement of Recommendations, which express unified support for a
proposed convention with specific recommendations from disabled women's
perspectives.
The Regional Workshop
towards a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection
and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities was
held to contribute to the global elaboration process on a proposed
convention, by sufficiently incorporating concerns of women and men with
disabilities in Asia and the Pacific region. The region has the largest
number of persons with disabilities (approximately 400 million) in the
world. As the outcome of the Workshop, it intended to adopt a draft of a
proposed convention, entitled "Bangkok
Draft."
UNESCAP invited individual experts of disability policies and human
rights, and participants representing the previous Workshop on Women and
Disability. All these experts were expected to contribute their substantive
and technical knowledge to the Workshop as well as empowering themselves
with direct involvement in a convention elaborating process. Experts were
from governmental agencies, semi-governmental agencies and civil society
organizations (organizations for persons with disabilities and self-help
organizations of persons with disabilities). Persons with disabilities
include those who have physical, visual, hearing and psychiatric
disabilities.
Immediately after the Workshop, the Bangkok Draft was revised by the
UNESCAP facilitator, based on the last discussion at the Workshop and the "Bangkok
Draft (version 2)" then was made available to this Seminar for
discussions and for formulation of a political statement entitled the
Declaration of Beijing, in the end.
A set of the "Bangkok Draft" and the
Declaration of Beijing (the outcome document of the
ESCAP/CDPF Seminar on the
Convention, held in November 2003 in Beijing China as the last one of
the ESCAP series of the Convention activities in 2003) was submitted to the
Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee with a copy to the United Nations Special
Rappoteur on Commission on Social Development, and the Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
During the above-mentioned first session of the global Working Group,
held in January 2004, at NY, the Bangkok Draft served as a basis for the
Chairman’s Draft of the Ad Hoc Committee and the text was fully utilized
for the agreed upon text of the Working Group, which was submitted to the
subsequent 3rd session of the Ad Hoc Committee, held in May/June 2004, at
NY. Bangkok regional input made a meaningful contribution to the global
process.
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