Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Report on second meeting of ambassadors of the Group of States Friends of the CRPD (February 24th 2010)

The following countries attended the meeting, some of which at ambassador level: Mexico and New Zealand (as co-chairs represented by the ambassadors), Ecuador, India, Australia (at ambassador level), Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, Chile, Thailand and Philippines (at lower level). Other participants included IDA Chair, the Chair of the CRPD Committee, Trevor Clarke from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation), Karin Lucke and Silvia Lavagnoli from the OHCHR, Alana Officer from the WHO and Naoko Obi from UNHCR. (Spain and Slovenia had apologized for not being able to attend)

The meeting was opened by both co-chairs who provided some background and thanked all participants for their attendance with a special reference to IDA.

The CRPD Committee Chair Ron McCallum gave a brief overview of their latest work, his expectation that the working methods would be adopted at this session and referred to the plan of the Committee to adopt a comment on article 12 within 8 months. When asked by the Mexican ambassador about main challenges, he referred to article 33 of the CRPD.

He was followed by J-P, who briefly presented IDA, the role it had played during the negotiation process and its mission now. He reminded about the key need to involve organizations of persons with disabilities and reiterated this by using the slogan: โ€œNothing about us without usโ€.

Silvia Lavagnoli briefly reminded about the role of her as disability focal point in the OHCHR and the role of the Inter-Agency Support Group to the Convention. She also informed about the recent study on article 33 which will be presented at the upcoming panel on the rights of persons with disabilities. She also stressed the relevance for the UN to explicitly state that the CRPD is the superseding instrument and that other instruments (also in the area of social development) have been replaced by the CRPD.

Karin Lucke briefly provided information on the support her division provides and she explained that the division of which she is interim chair supports four of the treaty bodies, including the CRPD Committee. She also referred to the harmonization of working methods that is happening among treaty bodies and mentioned that at the recent Inter-Committee meeting it had been decided to establish a working group on follow-up.

Before giving the floor to ambassador Trevor Clarke, regional director of WIPO, the Mexican ambassador gave the floor to the ambassador from Ecuador, as one of the three Latin American countries (together with Brazil and Paraguay) that had taken the lead to propose a treaty in WIPO to ensure the access of blind and visually impaired persons to materials which are protected by intellectual property. He also indicated that the UN would need to be coherent and revise its own functioning to ensure full compliance with the CRPD.

Ambassador Trevor Clarke provided some interesting background to this treaty negotiating process. He explained hat in developing countries only 1% of the written material was accessible to visually impaired persons and that this figure was 5% in developed countries. One of the existing legal barriers is that material which is made accessible in one country (for instance, audio books) can not be shipped to another country. He also explained that they were not only working on the legal aspect of this, but also on the technological aspects.

A number of interventions followed on this which indicated that existing intellectual property treaties included exceptions, but this had so far not been used and some of the opposition from industrialized countries to the proposed treaty was related to setting a precedent which could be used for other exceptions. One Government had proposed to expand the proposed treaty to benefit also other persons with disabilities, but this would put the whole process in danger and the general view was to limit it at this stage to one group in the understanding that later a wider exception could be achieved. It seems that only a few industrialized countries continue to be opposed and that therefore reaching an agreement seems to be within reach. J-P indicated his support for this approach.

The UNHCR representative mentioned the decision taken by States members of the Executive Committee and the Secretariat of the UNHCR to adopt an Excom conclusion on persons with disabilities at the next UNHCR Executive Committee meeting. She referred to the invisibility of persons with disabilities as the main rationale for such a conclusion.

Alana Officer presented the situation related to the upcoming World Report on Disability and encouraged the Group to become actively involved in the launch of the report also by bringing to Geneva national representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities.

Thailand referred to their work on victim assistance within the Mine Ban Treaty (they had been co-chairs of the standing committee of this until the end of last year) and the important link between the CRPD and the victim assistance work within the different disarmament treaties, Turkey referred to the importance of education, Philippines also referred to international co-operation.

Morocco highlighted the relevance of article 32 on international co-operation, the importance of disseminating the CRPD at national level and the role that plays civil society and was very appreciative to the involvement of it in the Group of States Friends of the CRPD.

The Mexican and New Zealand ambassadors thanked everybody for their attendance and reiterated the important role of IDA and its support to the Group. The Mexican ambassador also indicated that it would be important to continue having more information of the activities of the Inter-Agency Support Group to the CRPD and the work of the relevant UN agencies, programmes and funds. He also indicated that such a meeting at ambassador level would be held against next year.

In terms of conclusion, I would add that it was a very good meeting that will help to consolidate this group.

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When: 7/2/2014

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