Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Opens Thirty-Fifth Session
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities today opened its thirty-fifth session in Geneva, during which it will review the reports of Chile, Lithuania, Qatar, Slovakia and Sri Lanka under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Dimiter Chalev, Chief of the Equality and Non-discrimination Branch, Thematic and Special Procedures Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and representative of the Secretary General, opening the session, stressed that the financial and liquidity crisis affecting the United Nations was a key issue which had significantly constrained the work of treaty bodies. In 2026, the Committee's meeting time was reduced to five weeks, causing delays and cancellations of State reviews and pre-sessional working groups. The High Commissioner had warned that the treaty body system could reach a “breaking point” if the situation continued and urged Member States to pay their contributions fully and on time.
Miyeon Kim, Committee Chairperson, in her opening remarks, said this session was historically significant, taking place during the twentieth anniversary year of the Convention. On 27 August, the final day of the session, a special symposium would be held, examining the Committee’s journey, providing an opportunity to look honestly at what the Committee and the Convention had achieved, what remained unfinished, and what priorities should guide the next decade
The Committee then heard statements by States, United Nations entities, as well as civil society representatives, hearing from the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka and Chair of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention; the Chair of the Task Force on Accessibility at the Human Rights Council; the former Chair of the Committee and former Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Accessibility and Disability; the Chair of the annual meeting of Chairpersons of treaty bodies; the World Intellectual Property Organization; International Disability Alliance; Chairperson of the Asian Disability Forum; the Institute for History; the Centro de Derechos Humanos; and Support Girona.
During the meeting, the Committee also adopted the programme of work for the session.
The Committee’s thirty-fifth session will be held from 12 to 27 August 2026. Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, while webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committee’s thirty-fifth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.
The Committee will next meet in public today, 12 August at 3 p.m. to consider the combined second to fourth periodic report of Qatar (CRPD/C/QAT/2-4).
Opening Statements
DIMITER CHALEV, Chief of the Equality and Non-discrimination Branch, Thematic and Special Procedures Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,and representative of the Secretary General, congratulated the eight members elected for the Committee’s 2027–2030 term, as well as the re-elected member. The Committee was commended for its active participation in the nineteenth Conference of States Parties to the Convention. The Committee would mark the Convention’s twentieth anniversary with a public event on 27 August.
Mr. Chalev highlighted several important international developments concerning the rights of persons with disabilities, including two resolutions adopted at the March session of the Human Rights Council: one emphasising the importance of disability-inclusive digital technologies and accessible infrastructure; and another on mental health and human rights. The Committee’s guidelines were noted within the adoption of these resolutions. Furthermore, in June, the Council also extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities for three years. Other key human rights initiatives in which disability was an intersecting issue included July discussions on a potential international legally binding instrument on the human rights of older persons, as well as the Global Alliance for Human Rights, launched by the High Commissioner in June.
The financial and liquidity crisis affecting the United Nations was a key issue which had significantly constrained the work of treaty bodies. In 2026, the Committee's meeting time was reduced to five weeks, causing delays and cancellations of State reviews and pre-sessional working groups. The High Commissioner had warned that the treaty body system could reach a “breaking point” if the situation continued and urged Member States to pay their contributions fully and on time. The thirty-eighth annual meeting of Chairs of human rights treaty bodies, held in Geneva in June 2026, examined proposals to improve the treaty system, with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights continuing to develop and assess these proposals.
During its thirty-fifth session, the Committee would conduct dialogues with Chile, Lithuania, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Slovakia regarding their implementation of the Convention, and would continue work on general comments and guidelines. Mr. Chalev concluded by wishing the Committee a successful and productive session.
MIYEON KIM, Committee Chairperson, provided an update on the Committee’s intersessional activities and said the Committee was beginning the thirty-fifth session with an ambitious substantive programme. It would continue work concerning article 11 on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies, which was increasingly urgent, as armed conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, climate-related disasters and displacement continued to have disproportionate consequences for persons with disabilities.
The Committee would also advance work on article 29 concerning participation in political and public life and on the Guidelines on Intersectional Discrimination and the Guidelines on Disability-Based Violence. The Committee bore responsibility to make sometimes hidden forms of discrimination and violence visible and to provide clear guidance to States on prevention, protection, accountability, access to justice and effective remedies. The Committee would also continue its work on individual communications and inquiries under the Optional Protocol, as well as on its working methods and institutional effectiveness.
Ms. Kim said this session was historically significant, taking place during the twentieth anniversary year of the Convention. Twenty years ago, the Convention established a profound normative transformation. Today, the challenge was to ensure that this transformation became a lived reality. On 27 August, the final day of the session, a special symposium would be held, examining the Committee’s journey, providing an opportunity to look honestly at what the Committee and the Convention had achieved, what remained unfinished, and what priorities should guide the next decade. Ms. Kim concluded by recognising the indispensable role of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations and thanking all those who continued to support the work of the Committee under challenging circumstances.
Statements by Committee Experts, States, United Nations Bodies and Civil Society Representatives
In the discussion, several speakers said the Convention had become one of the most widely supported international treaties demonstrating an unprecedented global commitment dedicated to advancing the cause of persons with disabilities. Many countries had strengthened accessibility standards, reformed laws on employment, and adopted inclusive education policies, guided by the Convention. With ratification by 193 United Nations Member States, it enjoyed near-universal adoption. The Committee had transformed the Convention from a legal instrument into a living human rights framework that contributed to shared laws, policies and practices across the world and all regions, for disability inclusion.
This year marked 20 years since the adoption of the Convention, with many speakers congratulating the Committee on the twentieth anniversary of the Convention and all its achievements over the years. Twenty years ago, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the twenty-first century, a treaty that changed not only international law but how the world understood disability. It affirmed persons with disabilities as full holders of rights, not objects of charity, and gave the entire system a guiding principle: “Nothing about us without us.”
Drafted with the unprecedented participation of persons with disabilities and their organizations, the Convention renewed the idea of how international law was made, one speaker noted. Its human rights model of disability now informed the work of every Committee, ensuring no one was excluded from the treaty body work owing to disability. The Convention represented more than just another international human rights treaty; it marked a profound transformation in the understanding of disability from persons as an objective of charity and medical intervention, to persons with rights who had the right to live in dignity.
The anniversary offered the opportunity to celebrate progress under the Convention and renew commitment to its shared implementation. One speaker reflected on the first-ever meeting of the Committee, which established the rules of procedure, guidelines for submission of reports and the working methods. Trailblazing work had been conducted over the 20 years of the Committee, including focusing on persons who were charged with crimes who had an intellectual psycho-social disability.
Speakers outlined commitments to strengthen the framework outlined by the Convention, including through national disability policies and action plans, the prioritisation of dignified living conditions and institutional infrastructure improvements. Additionally, measures taken within the United Nations, including the Human Rights Council, had been taken to support persons with disability, including the use captioning and sign language, as well as reasonable accommodation. Accessible participation platforms ensured that persons with disabilities could participate on an equal basis. Convention obligations recognised the importance of training for teachers in Braille to support Braille literacy, as well as access to Braille graphics, textbooks and assistive technologies
However, while progress had been substantial, the work was far from complete; persons with disabilities continued to experience significant disparities in education, employment, health care, food security, digital access, and access to energy. Persons with disabilities needed to be able to make their own decisions, choose where they wanted to live, manage their own finances and participate equally in communities. In some countries, people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities faced complex situations, with many people still living in long-stay psychiatric settings, and mental health facilities were lacking. Many Sustainable Development Goal targets remained off track for persons with disabilities and the scale of the challenge was enormous.
Additionally, the United Nations liquidity crisis had direct consequences for protection, with sessions cancelled, reviews postponed and individual communications delayed. Behind every postponed dialogue stood rights holders, among them millions of persons with disabilities. A speaker implored the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure accessibility services for online meetings. The Committee was also encouraged to develop Easy-Read language versions of general comment one, accessible for all persons with disabilities.
The responsibility of sustaining the treaty body system, and the future of the Committee ultimately lay with States. It was a question not only of resources, but of priorities: even in difficult times, the protection of human rights needed to remain a core purpose of the United Nations. Speakers appealed to States parties to sustain the system they had created. Additionally, adequate and sustainable resources for the Committee must be recognised as an investment in human dignity and rights.
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