A Call for a Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa

Abstract

Central to the discourse on disability is the question of systemic disadvantage, characterised by the discrimination, and often complete exclusion, of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in society. In an effort to address the problem, on 13 December 2006, the international community adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which entered into force together with its Optional Protocol on 3 May 2008. In Africa, prior to the advent of the CRPD, the idea of a specific treaty on disability rights had surfaced in 2003 at the first AU Ministerial Conference on Human Rights in Africa. During this meeting, African leaders recognised the broad violation of the rights of ‘vulnerable groups including persons with disability in general’ and called for the adoption of ‘a Protocol on the protection of the rights of people with disabilities and the elderly’. This call was answered in 2009 when the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Commission) set a Working Group on the Rights of Older Persons and People with Disabilities to draft a concept paper that would serve as the basis for the adoption of a draft Protocol on the Elderly and People with Disabilities. The Working Group developed two draft protocols – one for the rights of older persons and the other one being the draft protocol on the rights of PWDs – at an expert meeting held in Accra, Ghana, hence the draft protocol on the rights of PWDs is called the ‘Accra draft’. However, the Accra draft was put on hold at the 49th Ordinary Session of the African Commission (28 April–12 May 2011) for further reflection.