The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In previous posts this blog has noted that the disabled have been left out of the civil rights revolution in America, that the disabled are this nation’s largest minority, and that under the reciprocity principle, If a remark or an action or an attitude would be seen as discriminatory if directed toward a minority, it is discriminatory for us. We have exactly the same civil rights, even if the justice system does not act as if we do. - Introduction: Social Attitudes and the Disability Cohort

As seen below, the UN has begun addressing these issues.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Prevention of discrimination

The Article 8 of Convention stresses the awareness raising to foster respect for the rights and dignity against discrimination:

1. To raise awareness throughout society, including at the family level, regarding persons with disabilities, and to foster respect for the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.
2. To combat stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices relating to persons with disabilities, including those based on sex and age, in all areas of life.
3. To promote awareness of the capacities and contributions of persons with disabilities.
4. Initiating and maintaining effective public awareness campaigns designed: (i) to nurture receptiveness to the rights of persons with disabilities. (ii) to promote positive perceptions and greater social awareness towards persons with disabilities. (iii) to promote recognition of the skills, merits and abilities of persons with disabilities, and of their contributions to workplaceand the labour market.
5. Encouraging all organs of the mass media to portray persons with disabilities in a manner consistent with the purpose of the present Convention.
6. Promoting awareness-training programmes regarding persons with disabilities and the rights of persons with disabilities.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The Convention has served as the major catalyst in the global movement from viewing persons with disabilities as objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing them as full and equal members of society, with human rights. It is also the only UN human rights instrument with an explicit sustainable development dimension. The Convention was the first human rights treaty of the twenty-first century.^[1]

The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 December 2006,^[2] and opened for signature on 30 March 2007. Following ratification by the 20th party, it came into force on 3 May 2008.^[3] As of April 2018, it has 161 signatories and 177 parties, which includes 172 states and the European Union(which ratified it on 23 December 2010 to the extent responsibilities of the member states were transferred to the European Union).^[4] In December 2012, a vote in the United States Senate fell six votes short of the two-thirds majority required for ratification.^[5] The Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_Persons_with_Disabilities