Scottish Human Rights Law Group

By Kasey Lowe

On 8 June 2009 the United Kingdom ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN Doc.A/61/611) just over two years after signing the Convention on 30 March 2007. For disabilities advocacy groups across the UK the fact that the Convention was ratified without the previously indicated reservations is a great triumph. Westminster specified the Convention as a European Community Treaty pursuant to the European Communities Act 1972(1), section 1(3), and it will now be fully incorporated into UK law as indicated by The European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Order 2009. The principal effect of declaring the Convention to be a Community Treaty is that the general implementation provisions of section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 will apply to it.

The Convention obliges all States Parties to promote, protect, and ensure the human rights of disabled people, so that they are treated on an equal basis with other people. With the UK’s ratification this week the total number of parties to the Convention is now fifty-eight. Echoing previously adopted UN human rights treaties, the Disabilities Convention does not aim to establish new human rights for disabled people, but sets out with greater clarity the human rights that disabled people already have and requires that the States Parties legislate appropriately to facilitate these rights.
The complete text of the UN Convention can be found here at page 33.