Equality and Human Rights Commission

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities is a new international agreement about protecting and promoting the human rights of disabled people throughout the world.

In this guide we use the term 'Convention' for short. There are other Conventions, for example the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. If we talk about a Convention other than the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, we will use its full name.

Human rights are a set of basic rights and freedoms that everyone is entitled to, regardless of who they are. They are about how the State must treat you. They recognise that everyone is of equal value, has the right to make their own decisions and should be treated with fairness, dignity and respect. Human rights have been written down in international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950).

The Convention describes the steps which governments must take to make sure disabled people enjoy their human rights to:

• equality before the law without discrimination
• make their own decisions
• have their family life respected
• freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
• an inclusive education
• a decent standard of living,
• support to participate in society and live in the community
• accessible physical environments and information

 These rights and others not listed here are contained in ‘Articles’. We explain what the rights mean in Part 2.