By IDA

 - September 2, 2017

After 3 weeks of hard work from the Committee Members, the CRPD Committee Secretariat, Organisations of Persons with Disabilities and Civil Society Organizations, and IDA, among others, the 18th session of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has come to an end. 

During this session, the CRPD Committee held interactive dialogues with the States of Latvia (CRPD/C/LVA/CO/1), Luxembourg CRPD/C/LUX/CO/1, Montenegro CRPD/C/MNE/CO/1, Morocco CRPD/C/MAR/CO/1, Panama CRPD/C/PAN/CO/1 and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland CRPD/C/GBR/CO/1. The Committee also adopted, under the Simplified Reporting Procedure, List of Issues prior to Report on Argentina, Australia, Ecuador and Tunisia.

Organisations of Persons with Disabilities and other Civil Society Organisations, engaged actively through the session and went back to their respective countries recognising for the opportunity to brief the CRPD Committee in private meetings with their members, who were attentive of the concerns about the situation of persons with disabilities in their countries. 

The Committee adopted the General Comment No 5 on Article 19 of the CRPD Living independently and being included in the community. The highlight points of Article 19 were: the need to include intersectional discrimination; involve organizations of persons with disabilities in the decision-making process; immediate application of reasonable accommodation and always paying attention to marginalised groups (Multiple disabilities, women, children, LGTBI, among others). 

UK civil society meets Theresia Degener, President of the Committee           Civil society from Argentina meets Carlos Parra, Committee member.

The work has started towards the adoption of the General Comment No 6 on Article 5 of the CRPD. During this session, on August 25th, the CRPD Committee held a Day of General Discussion on Article 5, which gathered representatives from States, CRPD Committee members, organisations of persons with disabilities, national human rights institutions and academia. Thorough discussions were held on key issues around Article 5 of the CRPD, enrichening reflections for a general comment. By the end of the session, the Committee endorsed a draft general comment, which will be posted in the upcoming weeks together with a call for comments by interested stakeholders.

With regard to countries to be considered at its 19th session, the Committee decided on Haiti, Nepal, Oman, the Russian Federation, Sudan, Slovenia and Seychelles. The Committee has also decided that during the 19th session, the Committee will adopt list of issues prior to reporting for Costa Rica, New Zealand, Paraguay and Republic of Korea under the Simplified Reporting Procedure.

Furthermore, it has also decided that the 9th Pre-sessional Working Group, in March 2018, will adopt List of Issues on Algeria, Cuba, Malta, Macedonia, Poland, Philippines and South Africa.

Read more about the Committee on the Rights for persons with disabilities website. 

closing_statement_crpd_18th_session (English, docx, 13.02 KB)

Room XVII during the 18th session of the Committee

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Category: CRPD Committee