I. History and Introduction
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on December 13, 2006.^1 The adoption of the CRPD is
lauded as an historic development in the struggle for global disability rights; the
Convention was the first new comprehensive human rights treaty in 16 years and the
first in the 21st century.^2 For the international disability community, adoption of the
treaty marked the end of a very long journey spent pressing for a new human rights
instrument that dealt specifically with the rights of persons with disabilities, separate
from existing instruments.^3 States and civil society worked together to develop the
CRPD and achieved "the most rapidly negotiated human rights treaty in the history of
international law; and the first to emerge from lobbying conducted extensively through
the Internet."^4
Several UN human rights instruments that predate the CRPD declare that all persons
have a right to be free from discrimination and enshrine rights that are applicable to
persons with disabilities, along with those who do not have disabilities. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights^5 , the founding human rights document, states that
everyone, regardless of status, has the right to be free from discrimination; the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)^6 and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)^7 both set out important
human rights guarantees that apply also to persons with disabilities. Nonetheless, for
human rights advocates and scholars it was clear that these rights have not been
(^1) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 13 December 2006, 2515 UNTS 3 (entered into
force 3 May 2008) [ 2 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities].
Don MacKay, “The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (2006-2007)
34 Syracuse J Int’l L & Com 323 at 323. 3
4 Ibid.^
The Secretary-General, “Message of the Secretary-General on the adoption of the Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities, delivered by Deputy Secretary-General”, UN.Doc SG/SM/10797,
HR/4911, L/T/4400 (December 13, 2006), online:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sgsm10797.doc.htm. 5
6 GA Res 217(III),UNGAOR, 3d Sess, Supp No 13, UN Doc 1st A/810, (1948) 71, Article 7.^
7 19 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171, 6 ILM 368 (entered into force 23 March 1976) [ICCPR].
16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3, 6 ILM 360 (entered into force 3 January 1976) [ICESCR].