Wading into the Mainstream

Many scholars have duly noted the uniquely participatory nature of the process leading to the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Indeed, the CRPD was the first human rights treaty where its targeted stakeholders—in this case, persons with disabilities and their representative organizations—directly participated in drafting text during the negotiations. Few, however, have noted that the CRPD’s highly participatory drafting process and creative advocacy was likely due in no small part to civil society mobilization around other predecessor treaty negotiations.

Notably, the CRPD drafting process was jumpstarted by Mexico not long after the highly successful adoption of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty. During this treaty’s negotiation, landmine survivors successfully lobbied states to ensure that the treaty addressed the reintegration of survivors into their communities as a state obligation—as evidenced by Article 6(3). Thereafter, landmine survivors made a strong showing during in the CRPD process. The origins of the reference to peer support in CRPD Article 26, for example, can be traced back to landmine survivors’ advocacy for the Mine Ban Treaty’s reintegration provisions.

Disability rights groups also drew lessons from civil society stakeholders influencing the development of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), as well as civil society members engaged in the environmental treaty negotiations. Disability rights groups adopted several of their cross-movement counterparts’ tactics and strategies during the CRPD negotiations to great effect. These included producing the historical archive for the negotiations in the form of daily summaries and distributing an advocacy newsletter in the early stages of the negotiations. Thus, the prior mobilization of seasoned international treaty advocates, coupled with intersectional experience-sharing, enabled disability rights groups to influence the CRPD drafting process more effectively.

The period following the CRPD’s adoption in 2006 has shown how the ultimate success of the global disability rights movement hinges on the ability of disability rights actors not only to learn from other constituencies but also to operate across sectors, especially within the United Nations’ complex peace and security architecture. The UN General Assembly, for example, organizes its work across six thematic committees. The CRPD was negotiated under the United Nations’ Third Committee which centers on social, humanitarian, and cultural topics, while issues such as non-proliferation and disarmament, including work on banning inhumane weapons, proceeds under the aegis of the First Committee. While this division of labor is likely necessary to streamline its far-reaching agenda, it has been criticized for creating “silos” that prevent advances in the work of one committee to be reflected in interrelated aspects of another committee’s agenda.

It might be assumed that the role of disarmament actors in the CRPD process would help to build a bridge between the United Nations’ Third Committee, where the CRPD was negotiated, and the First Committee, which addresses issues of substantial importance to persons with disabilities affected by armed conflict. Indeed, three of the treaties that form part of the First Committee’s focus— the Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—bring survivor assistance into their substantive obligations. However, following the CRPD’s adoption in 2006, disability issues have hardly penetrated the First Committee’s work, thereby threatening to fragment the United Nations’ global peace and security agenda.

Research by Professors Sean Howard and Tammy Bernasky of Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia has documented the glaring absence of disability rights from the First Committee’s deliberations. Among the 61 substantive resolutions adopted by the First Committee during its 2023 session, at least a third should have included issues related to persons with disabilities but did not. Incredibly, only a single resolution—on cluster munitions—made any reference to disability. On that basis, they propose a resolution on Disability, Disarmament, and Non-Proliferation, which, in their view, would not simply be a logical next step but one that is long overdue.

Indeed, an increasing number of other international legal protections for persons with disabilities recognize the longstanding centrality of disability rights to effective disarmament. For its part, CRPD Article 11 makes the connection between disability rights and international humanitarian law explicit. Likewise, UN Security Council Resolution 2475 on Protection of Persons with Disabilities in Conflict asserts the need to include marginalized voices in discussions on peace and disarmament. Moreover, paragraph 16 of the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy unequivocally states:

“[H]uman rights, peace and security and sustainable development for all can be enjoyed only if persons with disabilities in all their diversity are included in society on an equal basis with others and as both agents of change and beneficiaries of the outcomes of the work of the United Nations system. It is therefore imperative that disability inclusion be mainstreamed systematically into the work of all United Nations entities.”

Three successive reports of the (former) UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Mr. Gerard Quinn, concerning the protection of persons with disabilities across the peace continuum in 2021, 2022, and 2023 have helped to connect these intersecting provisions. These standards provide critical handholds for the First Committee to advance its aim to prevent armed conflict and prohibit the use of inhumane means and methods of warfare that cause unnecessary suffering contrary to international humanitarian law.

Thankfully, civil society is working to bridge the United Nations’ institutional silos. During the First Committee’s 2024 session, a coalition of individuals and civil society organizations released the first-ever civil society statement urging the First Committee to incorporate disability rights throughout its work. This statement was followed by a side event convened at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in New York, attended by ICRC legal advisors, UN officials, state representatives, and civil society organizations. There, the ICRC underscored the organization’s work in recent years to elevate the issue of disability within its mandate. HPOD’s Janet E. Lord contextualized the issue within the broader framework of the CRPD, UN Security Council resolutions, and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy. Matthew Bolton of Pace University spoke powerfully about the accessibility barriers he has faced while advocating at the United Nations due to his acquired hearing loss. More globally, a growing coalition of research institutes and advocacy organizations—including HPOD, Cape Breton University, the University of Baltimore’s Center for International & Comparative Law, the US International Council on Disabilities, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and Able South Carolina—is calling for further research to better understand the intersections between the CRPD and the UN disarmament agenda.

The voices of persons with disabilities, many of whom have lived through conflict, must be heard in the work of the First Committee. In addition to the CRPD’s explicit recognition of the interrelatedness of international humanitarian law and the human rights of persons with disabilities, the CRPD also makes plain that persons with disabilities are active agents of change locally and internationally. Thus, not only will the peace and security agenda remain incomplete without their full participation, but disarmament advocates and policymakers also stand to benefit from the expertise and insights of stakeholders directly affected by conflict.

Of course, the work before the First Committee is just one dimension of a broader agenda to ensure that disability voices and issues are included in the broader sustaining peace agenda. This includes addressing the invisibility of persons with disabilities context of climate change, disaster risk reduction, and global public health. Regionally, it means engagement with intergovernmental organizations like OSCE and NATO by organizations of persons with disabilities.

However, a significant challenge remains: unlike the Framework Convention Alliance formed by civil society organizations leading up to the FCTC, there is currently no global coalition effectively channeling energy into these agendas. Thus, to avoid the fragmentation of disability human rights within insular sectors of international law and cooperation, a more effective global coalition is needed to build bridges capable of spanning institutional silos, not only among the UN General Assembly’s six committees, but across all multilateral systems and frameworks.

Janet E. Lord is a Senior Researcher at Harvard Law School Project on Disability & Executive Director at the University of Baltimore's Center for International and Comparative Law.