On Friday 26th July, the Human Rights Committee closed its 141st session. Throughout this session, the Committee undertook the reviews of Croatia, Honduras, India, Maldives, Malta, Suriname and the Syrian Arab Republic, to assess their implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (videos available here). Unfortunately, only four out of the seven concluding observations adopted include issues related to the rights of persons with disabilities. The International Disability Alliance has published its compilation of Disability Relevant Extracts out of these four Concluding Observations, which can be found here, allowing to observe interesting elements related to persons with disabilities.
The Human Rights Committee explicitly highlights disability as a forbidden ground of discrimination and points out to disability related issues in its recommendations to India and Suriname about comprehensive anti-discrimination legal frameworks. For the case of India, the Committee "welcomes the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 but notes that discriminatory laws remain and access to public space and reasonable accommodation is still inadequate."
In the case of Suriname, while the Committee highlights that the "Equal Treatment Labour Act in 2022 [...] explicitly prohibits discrimination on the grounds of disability", it recommends the State to "[p]rioritize the drafting and adoption of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, within a clear timeframe and with the effective and meaningful participation of CSOs and Indigenous and tribal peoples, and ensure that the law explicitly prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination in the public and private spheres" (emphasis added), thus going way beyond the area covered by the Equal Treatment Labour Act. A similar recommendation was also addressed to the Syrian Arab Republic.
In its Concluding Observations to the Maldives, the Human Rights Committee addresses the death penalty, specifically expressing its concern "that, despite the fact that individuals facing death penalty undergo evaluation to determine whether they are mentally fit or not, there are reported cases of imposition of the death penalty against persons with psychosocial disabilities." The Committee recommends the State to "consider abolishing the death penalty and ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights". While that remains pending, the Committee requests that "[t]he death penalty is imposed only for the most serious crimes involving intentional killing and is never imposed in violation of the Covenant," which would include it not being imposed to persons with psychosocial disabilities (see, Human Rights Committee, general comment no. 36, paragraph 49).
Finally, the Human Rights Committee addresses the rights of persons with disabilities to participate in public affairs in its recommendations to India, in a manner compliant with article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), leaving behind language around individual assessment of voting capacity and other phrasing incompatible with the CRPD. The Committee recommends India to "give full effect to the right of every person to participate in public affairs without discrimination, including persons with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities."
Upcoming sessions and States' reviews: calling OPDs to engage!
Nothing replaces the engagement of national organizations of persons with disabilities to raise their concerns regarding the implementation of civil and political rights at the national level as a way of requesting the Human Rights Committee to give more explicit consideration to them. As per usual, the International Disability Alliance invites national organizations of persons with disabilities to engage with the Human Rights Committee and other UN Treaty Bodies.
Find the relevant information on future sessions at the Human Rights Committee's Session Database. Upcoming States' reviews include the following countries:
- Ecuador, France, Greece, Iceland, Pakistan, Türkiye at the 142nd session (14 Oct 2024 - 08 Nov 2024) (deadline for reports: 16 September 2024)
- Albania, Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Zimbabwe at the 143rd session (03 Mar 2025 - 28 Mar 2025) (deadline for reports: 3 February 2024)
See IDA Guidance Document on reporting to human rights mechanisms and engage with the upcoming review of your country!
