Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - PDF version

Download the PDF version of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities here

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Microsoft Word

This is a version of the CRPD and its Optional Protocol in word format.

Disabled Peoples International (DPI) Ratification and Implementation Toolkits

Advocates can use the DPI Ratification Toolkit as a guide to the process of working with their national government to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The accompanying Implementation Toolkit offers guidance to advocates on how to ensure that their country fully implements the CRPD.

Finding the Gaps: A Comparative Analysis of Disability Laws in the United States to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Compares existing laws in the United States against the CRPD and analyzes the gaps in these laws. By the National Council on Disability; 146 pages.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Questions and Answers (Word format, 119 Kb)

This 10-page document produced by the United Nations summarizes the purpose of the CRPD and the Optional Protocol and the human rights they are meant to protect. Also describes how the CRPD is meant to be implemented and monitored and how the CRPD was first developed.

Disabled Peoples International (DPI) Ratification and Implementation Toolkits

Advocates can use the DPI Ratification Toolkit as a guide to the process of working with their national government to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The accompanying Implementation Toolkit offers guidance to advocates on how to ensure that their country fully implements the CRPD.

DPI CRPD primers

DPI has produced a series of two page primers about the CRPD, providing information about the issues and obligations addressed in the CRPD.  Versions in French and Spanish can also be accessed through the main DPI portal.

Guidance Document: Effective Use of International Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms to Protect the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Explains the role of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in monitoring implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  Provides guidance in how disability advocates can influence how governments report on the status of disability rights to the Committee and how they can prepare their own parallel reports.  Published in May 2010; 83 pages.

La vigie de l’exercice des droits des personnes ayant des incapacités au Canada Vigie de Toronto fiche d’information sur la participation sociale, Juillet 2010 (in French)

Disability Rights Promotion International Canada produced this two-page fact sheet monitoring the status of social participation for people with disabilities in Toronto, Canada.  In French; see also version in English.

Making It Work (MIW) Initiative

The purpose of Handicap International's Making It Work Initiative is to inspire practitioners, policy makers and advocates in their effective implementation of the CRPD by collecting and exchanging examples of good practices and advocating for good policies that are in line with the CRPD. 

Monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Guidance for Human Rights Monitors

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has released this guide that advises how to monitor what is--and isn't--being done to protect the human rights of people with disabilties. Available in PDF format, 68 pages.

Monitoring the Human Rights of People with Disabilities in Canada: Toronto Monitoring Site Fact-sheet on Social Participation, July 2010 (English)

Disability Rights Promotion International Canada has produced this two-page fact sheet monitoring the status of social participation for people with disabilities in Toronto, Canada. In English; see also version in French.

Monitoring the Human Rights of People with Disabilities in Canada: Toronto Monitoring Site Fact Sheet

Disability Rights Promotion International Canada (DRPI-Canada) has released a fact sheet from its human rights monitoring project in Toronto.  The fact sheet presents a summary of the findings of disability rights monitoring focusing on the individual experiences of persons with disabilities. The monitoring project in Toronto was led by DPRI's partner, Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT). People with disabilities participated fully in all aspects of the project as coordinators and monitors. Preliminary results were discussed and feedback incorporated by means of a focus group organized with the support of CILT.

See Me, Hear Me - A guide to using the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to promote the rights of children

This 200-page guide from Save the Children UK, published in May 2009, explains how to use the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to improve the protection of the human rights of children with disabilities. Available in English, Arabic, Spanish, and French.

Understanding the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

This manual edited by Handicap International is a tool for explaining the content of the CRPD and provides detailed information on what occurred during the negotiation and drafting process. It gives a comprehensive overview of the CRPD, and the positions taken by the different stakeholders involved (government delegates, UN agencies, human rights institutions and other representatives from civil society, most importantly disabled people’s organizations (DPOs)).

This document also provides information on interpreting the text of the CRPD and providing further information for its implementation at the local, national, regional and international levels.