Workshop Background : Aide Memoire
UN ESCAP Workshop on Regional Follow-up to the Seventh Session and
Preparation for the Eighth Session of the Ad Hoc Committee of the General
Assembly on the Elaboration of a Convention on the Rights and Dignity of
Persons with Disabilities (26-27 July 2005, at UNCC Bangkok)
At the global level
Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention
on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with
Disabilities
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, "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. In preparation to its second session the Ad Hoc Committee
decided to seek views and suggestions on a convention by States and all
relevant international, regional and national organizations.
At its
Second
Session, from 16-27 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
Group would take into account all previous contributions submitted to the Ad
Hoc Committee.
The
Working Group, composed of representatives of Member States,
non-governmental organizations and a national human rights institution, met
from 5 to 16 January 2004.
In accordance with
General
Assembly Resolution 58/246, the Ad Hoc Committee started its negotiation
on a draft convention at its Third Session from 24 May to 4 June 2004, based
on the draft text prepared by the Working Group
Sessions of the Ad Hoc Committee
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.
Since then, ESCAP has been organizing an annual regional preparatory
workshop for each session of AHC, designed for the anticipated
representatives of governments and civil society in the Asia-Pacific region.
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