The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a landmark in ensuring and promoting the human rights of all citizens, and in particular of persons with disabilities.

The adoption of a Convention on Human Rights at the beginning of this century resulted from the widespread consensus of the international community (governments, NGOs and citizens) on the need to effectively ensure respect for the integrity, dignity and individual freedom of persons with disabilities and to strengthen the prohibition of discrimination against these citizens through laws, policies and programmes that specifically address their characteristics and promote their participation in society.

The Convention reaffirms the universal principles (dignity, integrality, equality and non-discrimination) on which it is based and defines the general obligations of governments to integrate the various dimensions of disability into their policies, as well as the specific obligations relating to raising society's awareness of disability, combating stereotypes and valuing persons with disabilities.

In order to effectively guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities, a system of international monitoring of the implementation of the Convention is established through the establishment of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the United Nations.

The Convention also incorporates the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which recognises, in an innovative way, the right of individuals or a group of individuals to submit individual complaints to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Portugal fully subscribes to the human rights approach of persons with disabilities advocated by the Convention and actively participated in the multilateral negotiation of the Convention, both at United Nations and European Union level. Associations of persons with disabilities and their families also participated in this negotiation through their European and international representatives.

As a mission, the INR has a national commitment to affirm and defend the Principles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in all sectoral policies of Prevention, Enabling, Rehabilitation and Inclusion.

Documents available for download

• Convenção sobre os Direitos da Pessoas com Deficiência [PDF | 71 KB | 21 page(s)]
• Convenção sobre os Direitos da Pessoas com Deficiência (leitura fácil) [PDF | 8087 KB | 102 page(s)]
• Protocolo opcional [PDF | 16 KB | 3 page(s)]
• Relatório inicial de Portugal sobre a implementação da Convenção [PDF | 382 KB | 56 page(s)]
• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Portuguese Sign Language