Disability
The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion people – about 16% of the global population – currently experience significant disability. The United Nations works to promote full participation of the disabled in social life and the same political and civil rights as others.
Two declarations and an action plan
In the 1970s, the General Assembly adopted two declarations:
- Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons, adopted in 1971.
- Declaration of the Rights of Disabled Persons, adopted in 1975.
In 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons, IDYP, (A/RES/36/77) was proclaimed. The resulting document - World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (A/RES/37/52), adopted in 1982, promotes the goals of full participation of disabled persons with the same urgency to all countries regardless of their level of development.
Decade of Disabled Persons 1983-1992
The General Assembly, underlining the importance of the implementation of the principles of this programme, proclaimed the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons 1983-1992. In 1992 the General Assembly devoted two plenary meetings to the assessment of the outcome of this decade. As a result, the resolution Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (A/RES/48/96) were adopted in 1993. These rules serve as a basic instrument and guidelines in the field of disability.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by the General Assembly on 13 December 2006.
DSPD Disability samordnar
Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD) works to strengthen international cooperation on matters relating to disability within UN. DSPD is part of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) under the UN Secretariat.
UN programme on disability
The UN Programme on Disability/Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (SCRPD) falls within the Division for Social Inlusive Social Development (DISD) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). SCRPD promotes the rights and advancement of persons with disabilities within a broad mandate provided by the World Programme of Action (1982), Standard Rules (1994) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), as well as other relevant human rights and development instruments.
More on UN and disability
- The General Assembly resolution (A/RES/48/96) Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.
In Swedish - In English - Declarations and conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities are posted at the website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
- The World Health Organization (WHO). Information on disability and access to statistics and data.
- SDGs and Social Development Issues. Disability Illustration of which SDGs cover disability.
- General Assembly Reports and Resolutions.
Human rights, conventions and declarations
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
- Resolution 217 A (III) / A/RES/217(III) adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 during its 183rd plenary meeting
- The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies
- Universal Human Rights Index - UHRI. Human rights recommendations from all parts of the UN system: the UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, the Human Rights Council mechanisms Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures. Each document links to other related information in the database
- Charter-based Body Database. Documents and reports of the Human Rights Council, its predecessor and their subsidiaries and parent organs. Maintained by OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights).
- Treaty Body Database. Full text documents from the UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies
- Yearbook on Human Rights 1946-1988
- OHCHR website for background information, documents and reports.
- Research guides by the UN library Dag Hammarskjöld Library:
UN documents and publications in catalogues and databases
- United Nations Digital Library. UN official documents and open access publications, UN maps, UN voting data and speeches.
- UN iLibrary. UN publications online covering different topics.
- ODS (Official Document System) is an full-text database of UN documents published since 1993, including digitized documents published between 1946 and 1993.
- Daily list of documents. Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
- UNBIS Thesaurus is a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
- Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
- a list of all documents
- a comprehensive subject index
- an index to speeches
- a voting chart of resolutions
- United Nations Documents Index (in United Nations Digital Library). References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, Sweden and the UN Library in New York and the UN library in Geneva.