September 18, 2012 - 9:00am

Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural)

The Third Committee of the 67th session of the General Assembly adopted during this session two specific resolutions on the rights of persons with disabilities:

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto, (Draft, A/C.3/67/L.25 PDF version), sponsored by Sweden, New Zealand and Mexico and adopted at the meeting of the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly on Monday, 19 November.  With this resolution, from 2014 onwards the Committee will have two extra weeks as well as two pre-sessional weeks connected with the main sessions;

Realizing the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons with disabilities towards 2015 and beyond, (Draft, A/C.3/67/L.10/Rev.1 PDF version), IDA advocated successfully for a specific link to be made between the High Level Meeting on Disability and Development outcome document and the post-MDG framework negotiations and advocated also against many references to the outdated World Programme of Action (WPA). The final resolution, while still including some reference to the WPA, is reasonably good.

Additionally adopted during this Session of the General Assembly was a strong horizontal resolution on Addressing the socioeconomic needs of individuals, families and societies affected by autism spectrum disorders (ASD) developmental disorders (DD) and associated disabilities (Draft, A/67/L.33 PDF version).

There is a notable new tendency in the work of the Third Committee to refer to vulnerable groups as a whole instead of mentioning specific groups by name. Despite this new trend, this year the Committee adopted more resolutions with specific disability references than in the past. Disability analysis of resolutions adopted by the Third Committee

Related Documents:

  • Specific-Disability reports presented to the Third Committee on the UN General Assembly: “Report of the Secretary-General on the status of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto” (A/67/281) and the “Report of the Secretary-General on Realization of the Millennium Development Goals and internationally agreed development goals for persons with disabilities: a disability-inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond” (A/67/211). Ms Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences has also presented to the Third Committee her report, which provides an overview of the activities of the Special Rapporteur and discusses the issue of violence against women with disabilities (A/67/227)
  • Press Release: IDA requests UN Member States not to adopt a resolution that undermines the CRPD

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