International Day of Persons with Disabilities is held on 3rd December each year.  The theme of the day for 2008 is “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and Justice for all of us”.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted by the UN on 13th December 2006 and was opened for signature on 30th March 2007.  There were 82 signatories to the Convention, including Ireland, which is the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol are legally binding instruments which set out the legal obligations of States to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities.  It is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension.  It adopts a broad categorisation of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.  It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.

2008 is a significant year in the international human rights movement given the entry into force on 3rd May of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Galway Centre for Independent Living would like to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and are asking for suggestions as to how you would like us to do this.