Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - Third session

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities met at the United Nations in Geneva from 22 to 26 February 2010.  The Committee is composed of 12 Committee members and chaired by Mr. Ronald McCallum.

This treaty body, which held its first meeting in February 2009, adopted two key documents of key importance for its future work during its third session: the Rules of Procedure and Working Methods, which will be published shortly.

An important moment for the Committee was its meeting with States parties, UN agencies and NGOs, during which, in a collaborative spirit, various aspects concerning the preparation of State parties’ reports to be submitted to the Committee were discussed.  For the fulfillment of this obligation, the Committee has elaborated guidelines for the submission of reports, published in November 2009.

Another important area addressed by the Committee was the holding of the Day of General Discussion last year, which was devoted to Article 12 of the CRPD on legal capacity, as well as the planning of a Day of General Discussion in 2010 which will deal with "accessibility" in accordance with Article 9 of the Convention. For both topics the Committee has established working groups, to study a general comment in the first case and to plan this upcoming activity in the second case.

At another level, the Committee established a working group that will follow-up on the situation of persons with disabilities in Haiti, following the earthquake last January. They will also monitor the situation in other places affected by similar disasters.

In order to address the issue of communications under the Optional Protocol to the Convention, the Committee elected by consensus to Ms. María Soledad Cisternas as Special Rapporteur  on Communications.

Finally, the Committee appointed Ms. Amna Ali Al Suweidi as focal point for networking with other treaty bodies.  Along the same lines of establishing closer cooperation with other Human Rights treaty bodies, the Committee agreed that President Ronald McCallum and Mr. Mohammed Al-Tarawneh will represent CRPD at the next meeting of the ICM to be held in late June 2010.