Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a United Nations human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly on 13 December 2006 to protect the rights and dignity of people with disabilities. It opened for signature on 30 March 2007 and entered into force on 3 May 2008 after its twentieth ratification; as of April 2025 it counted 193 parties, 192 states plus the European Union. Rather than treating disabled people as objects of charity or medical treatment, the convention frames them as full and equal members of society entitled to the same human rights as everyone else, setting out fifty articles built on eight guiding principles including dignity, non-discrimination and accessibility, and covering both civil and political rights such as legal capacity and voting and economic and social rights such as education, employment, health and housing. A Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, eighteen independent experts, reviews state compliance and issues interpretive General Comments.