Final report of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities

Final report of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities

Note by the Secretary-General

The Secretary-General has the honour to submit to the General Assembly, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 60/232, the final report of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities on its eighth session.

Final report of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive
and Integral International Convention on the Protection
and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with
Disabilities on its eighth session

1. The present report complements the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities on its eighth session (A/AC.256/2006/4 and Add.1). During that session, at its 20th meeting, on 25 August 2006, the Committee had adopted the draft Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including a draft Optional Protocol, as a whole, without a vote. 1

2. At the same meeting, the Committee had decided to establish an open-ended drafting group tasked with ensuring the uniformity of terminology throughout the draft Convention and draft Optional Protocol; harmonizing the versions in the six official languages of the United Nations; and reporting on the results of its work to the Committee at a resumed eighth session to be held in time to enable the Committee to forward the finalized draft Convention and draft Optional Protocol to the General Assembly before the end of its sixty-first session. The Committee had requested the Secretary-General to provide adequate secretariat services to the drafting group, within existing resources.

3. At its 21st meeting, on 5 December 2006, the Committee heard an oral report by the Chairman of the open-ended drafting group, Stefan Barriga (Liechtenstein), on the results of its work. The drafting group had held nine meetings, from 6 September to 17 November 2006. At its ninth meeting, on 17 November, the drafting group had decided to forward to the Committee the results of its work as reflected in the annex to the present report.

4. At its 22nd meeting, on 5 December 2006, the Committee decided to delete the footnote to article 12 of the draft Convention.

5. At the same meeting, the representative of Iraq, in his capacity as Chair of the Arab Group for the month of December 2006 (on behalf of Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen), read out a letter dated 5 December 2006 addressed to the Chairman of the Committee (A/AC.265/2006/5). The representative of Finland, in his capacity as Chair of the European Union (on behalf of the States Members of the United Nations that are members of the European Union as well as Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Iceland, Israel, Moldova, Monaco, Norway, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and United States), read out a letter dated 5 December 2006 addressed to the Chairman of the Committee (A/AC.265/2006/6).

6. Also at the same meeting, the Secretary of the Committee read out a statement by the Secretary-General concerning the financial implications of draft resolution A/AC.265/2006/L.8/Rev.1.

7. At the same meeting, the Committee decided to recommend to the General Assembly for adoption a draft resolution entitled “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, containing the draft Convention and draft Optional Protocol (see annex)*.

 

Footnotes

1. The Committee had adopted preambular paragraph (s) bis of the draft Convention by a recorded vote of 102 to 5 with 8 abstentions (see A/AC.256/2006/4); the paragraph was subsequently renumbered by the drafting group to become preambular paragraph (u) of the draft Convention..

* Annex contains the text of the Convention and its Optional Protocol.

 

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