Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to ratify the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities that requires countries to establish policies regarding the treatment of individuals with disabilities.

Highlights:

• Specifies that individuals with disabilities include individuals with long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which may hinder their participation in society (Art. 1).

• Requires each party to take measures, including legislation, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability by any individual, organization, or private enterprise including, but not limited to, discrimination in the following instances (Arts. 4-6, 23-25, 27 & 28):
• Discrimination in existing laws, regulations, customs and practices;
• Discrimination in accommodation before the law;
• Discrimination based on gender;
• Discrimination in marriage, family, parenthood, and relationships;
• Discrimination in education;
• Discrimination in health care, health insurance, and life insurance;
• Discrimination in employment including recruitment, hiring, career advancement, and working conditions; and
• Discrimination in social programs including access to clean water, state assistance, public housing, and retirement benefits.

• Requires each party to adopt measures to raise awareness regarding individuals with disabilities, including, but not limited to, the following (Art. 8):
• Initiate and maintain public awareness campaigns;
• Promote recognition of the skills, merits, and abilities of individuals with disabilities;
• Encourage all organs of media to portray individuals with disabilities in a manner consistent with the purpose of the Convention; and
• Promote awareness-training programs regarding rights of individuals with disabilities.

• Requires each party to take measures to ensure an individual with disabilities access to the physical environment, transportation, information and communications, and other public facilities (Art. 9).

• Requires each party to take measures to ensure an individual with disabilities has “effective enjoyment,” on an equal basis with others, of the individual’s right to life (Art. 10).

• Requires each party to take all legislative, administrative or judicial measures to prevent an individual with disabilities from being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (Art. 15).

• Prohibits any individual from being subject to medical or scientific experimentation without his or her voluntary consent (Art. 15).

• Requires each party to take all legislative, administrative, social, and educational measures to protect an individual with disabilities from all forms of exploitation, violence, and abuse (Art. 16).

• Requires each party to ensure that all facilities and programs designed to serve individuals with disabilities are monitored by independent authorities (Art. 16).

• Requires each party to take measures to ensure that an individual with disabilities has the opportunity to choose his or her place of residence and prohibits the individual from being required to live in a particular living arrangement (Art. 19).

• Requires each party to protect the privacy of personal, health, and rehabilitation information of individuals with disabilities (Art. 22).

• Requires each party to ensure the rights and responsibilities of an individual with disabilities regarding guardianship and adoption of children and requires the “best interests of the child” to be paramount (Art. 23).

• Requires each party to take measures, including legislation, to ensure the right of an individual with disability to employment, including, but not limited to, the employment of individuals with disabilities in the public sector and the promotion of the employment of individuals in the private sector (Art. 27).

• Requires each party to ensure an individual with disability is not held in slavery or servitude and is protected, on an equal basis with others, from compulsory labor (Art. 27).

• Establishes the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to collect information on the progress of the Convention and report to each party on its results and recommendations (Arts. 34 & 36).

• Requires each party to submit a report to the Committee every 4 years on measures taken to give effect to the party’s obligations under the Convention (Art. 35).

• Specifies that nothing in the Convention requires the countries to affect laws already contained in their state or in international law (Art. 4).

• Requires all provisions of the Convention to extend to all parts of the federal states without limitation or exception (Art. 4).

Full Bill Text

Full Bill Text