Call for civil society inputs on the implementation of measures of accessibility for persons with disabilities

Deadline for 15 March 2012

Pursuant to the Day of the General Discussion on Article 9 of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, held on October 7th, 2010, and the decision taken by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ Working Group for drafting a General Comment on Article 9 of the Convention, at the Committee’s 6th session held in September 2011, the Committee puts forth an official call for submission of practical and theoretical papers on implementation of the Article 9 on accessibility of the Convention.

The Committee would welcome practical and theoretical papers focusing in particular on the following aspects of the implementation of the Article 9 of the Convention :
 The relation between Article 9 and Article 5 (“Non- discrimination and equality”),
 The nature of accessibility as defined in Article 9 and other relevant articles of the Convention- whether it is a principle, a right, a precondition for full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in society and for their liberty of movement, or all of the above,
 The aspects of the progressive realization of the accessibility and the relation between accessibility and reasonable accommodation,
 The input, mandate and competences of various national stakeholders- the public authorities, expert associations (e.g. Chambers of Architects and Engineers), the academia and the civil society (in particular the organizations of persons with disabilities)- in defining the national accessibility standards and monitoring its’ implementation,
 The examples of good practice in promotion of universal design and accessibility, funding and realization of regional, national and local action plans for accessibility and the removal of barriers in physical environment, public transport, information and communication and access to services opened to the public.

The Committee calls upon the persons with disabilities, their organizations and other civil society actors, expert associations, educational and scientific institutions, national human rights institutions, State Parties and regional organizations to submit papers on the above- mentioned subjects related to the implementation of the Article 9 of the Convention. The Committee would welcome papers on the areas specified above, in either English, Spanish or Arabic. The papers should be as concise as possible and submitted to the following email address in Word format by no later than 15 March 2012 : crpd@ohchr.org.

More information : http://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/crpd/pages/crpdindex.aspx