Equality and Human Rights Commission

When a government has ratified the Convention it commits to taking practical action to make rights real. It should:

• take steps so that disabled people can enjoy all their rights – for example making sure that disabled people have full protection against all forms of discrimination – including taking action against failure to make reasonable adjustments
• look at existing laws and say what changes need to be made
• abolish laws and practices that discriminate against disabled people
• pass new laws and make new policies where necessary
• take account of disabled people's human rights in everything it does (people often call this 'mainstreaming' – thinking at the beginning of a process about making sure that disabled people are not excluded)
• avoid doing anything that infringes disabled people's Convention rights
• ensure that professionals who work with disabled people have training to understand how to respect their rights
• ensure that the private sector and individuals respect the rights of disabled people
• promote accessibility including the development of standards
• ensure international development programmes address disability issues and include disabled people, as well as working with other international bodies
• gather information and statistics about the position of disabled people in society so it can track progress and develop better policies.

The Convention places obligations on the 'State Party': for Britain this is the UK Government. However, protecting and promoting many of the rights under the Convention depends on action by regional and local authorities and other national bodies. Therefore, the UK Government should take steps to ensure these authorities (for example local health boards, local councils, inspectorates, police) are doing what is necessary to implement the Convention. The Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly Government will need to ensure such actions are taken in Scotland and Wales in areas where responsibility for delivering legislation, services or participation has been devolved.

If the government fails to take these steps, then it may be in breach of the Convention. In Part 3 we explain how you can deal with this, and also how you can use the Convention in relation to other public bodies and anyone delivering public services on their behalf.

It is worth noting that the Convention has different types of rights. Some rights give the government flexibility, others do not. For example, taking somebody's life or torturing a person is never allowed. Other rights can be restricted in some situations which must be set out in law, for example people have the right to liberty, but they can be sent to prison because of an offence written in the law.

Many of the rights in the Convention require the government to take proactive steps. However, the Convention recognises that many countries may not be able to take steps to make some of the rights real for all disabled people immediately. The government should still try to do everything in its power and use all available resources to make sure disabled people enjoy their human rights as quickly as possible. This is often called 'progressive realisation'. The UN is likely to expect a relatively wealthy country like Britain, which has already got many of the basics in place, to be doing better than a developing country.

While governments are working on improvements to rights they should still:

• avoid taking steps which deny disabled people their enjoyment of human rights, and
• ensure everyone has the minimum essential level of support they need in terms of food and shelter, and basic levels of health care and education.

Part 3 explains how you can use the Convention.