In the past, persons with disabilities suffered from a relative “invisibility”, and tended to be viewed as “objects” of protection, treatment and assistance rather than subjects of rights. As a result of this approach, persons with disabilities were excluded from mainstream society, and provided with special schools, sheltered workshops, and separate housing and transportation on the assumption that they were incapable of coping with either society at large or all or most major life activities. They were denied equal access to those basic rights and fundamental freedoms (e.g. health care, employment, education, vote, participation in cultural activities) that most people take for granted. 

A dramatic shift in perspective has been taking place over the past two decades, and persons with disabilities have started to be viewed as holders of rights. This process is slow and uneven, but it is taking place in all economic and social systems.  

The rights-based approach to disability essentially means viewing persons with disabilities as subjects of law. Its final aim is to empower disabled persons, and to ensure their active participation in political, economic, social, and cultural life in a way that is respectful and accommodating of their difference. This approach is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to enhancing the promotion and protection of the human rights of persons with disabilities. Strengthening the protection of human rights is also a way to prevent disability. 

Four core values of human rights law are of particular importance in the context of disability:

• the dignity of each individual, who is deemed to be of inestimable value because of his/her inherent self-worth, and not because s/he is economically or otherwise “useful”; 
  
  
• the concept of autonomy or self-determination, which is based on the presumption of a capacity for self-directed action and behaviour, and requires that the person be placed at the centre of all decisions affecting him/her;
   
• the inherent equality of all regardless of difference;
   
• and the ethic of solidarity, which requires society to sustain the freedom of the person with appropriate social supports.   

This shift to a human rights perspective has been authoritatively endorsed at the level of the United Nations, and is reflected in several developments which have taken place at the international level since the proclamation by the General Assembly of the year 1981 as the “International Year of the Disabled” under the slogan “Full Participation and Equality”.  

In 1982, the General Assembly adopted the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons, which set the guidelines for a world strategy to promote “equality” and “full participation” by persons with disabilities in social life and development. As a follow-up to the World Programme of Action, the General Assembly adopted in 1993 a resolution entitled Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for People with Disabilities. The Standard Rules explicitly take the International Bill of Human Rights (which comprises the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two international Covenants on  Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Civil and Political Rights) as their political and moral foundation (para. 13), and constitute an important reference guide in identifying the relevant obligations of States parties under the existing human rights instruments. They aim at ensuring that “girls, boys, men and women with disabilities, as members of their societies, may exercise the same rights and obligations as others”, and require States to remove obstacles to equal participation (para. 15). Also in 1993, the Vienna Declaration for Human Rights reaffirmed that “all human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal, and thus unreservedly include persons with disabilities”, and placed the active participation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of civil society explicitly in a human rights context.  

OHCHR’S mandate

In its Resolution 2000/51 on the human rights of persons with disabilities, the Commission on Human Rights requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in cooperation with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Disability, to examine measures to strengthen the protection and monitoring of the human rights of persons with disabilities. 

Following to that request, the Office of the High Commissioner developed a programme aimed at enhancing the human rights dimension of disability, which aims at

• encouraging the integration of disability issues in the activities of treaty-monitoring bodies and human rights extra-conventional mechanisms  (e.g. Special Rapporteurs to the Commission on Human Rights);
   
• supporting the elaboration of a new thematic Convention on the human rights and dignity of persons with disabilities;
   
• strengthening collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on disability of the Commission for Social Development and other United Nations specialized agencies active in the area of disability.

Integrating disability further into the work of existing human rights mechanisms and elaboration of a new convention should be seen as complementary approaches. Together with continuing efforts to address the social development dimension of the problems faced by persons with disabilities, this constitutes the so-called multi-track approach advocated by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.