A/HRC/31/30 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 28/4, the Human Rights Council requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to prepare a report on the rights of persons with disabilities under article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, on situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies, in consultation with States parties and other relevant stakeholders, regional organizations, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities, and national human rights institutions. The Council also requested that contributions be submitted in an accessible format and be made available together with the report in an easy-to-read-version on the OHCHR website prior to the thirty-first session of the Council. 2. Pursuant to the request of the Human Rights Council, OHCHR solicited contributions and received 27 responses from States parties, seven from national human rights institutions and 11 from civil society organizations and other stakeholders. 1 II. Rights of persons with disabilities in situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies 3. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has marked a paradigm shift, adopting a human rights-based approach to disability with a focus on the removal of barriers to the inclusion and participation of persons with disabilities in society and on the enjoyment of their rights on an equal basis with others. International humanitarian law on the other hand has been codified under previously dominant understandings of disability, notably the medical model of disability, which focuses exclusively on the impairment of the person and reflects a paternalistic approach to persons with disabilities. 2 These concepts have been superseded by the human rights-based approach to disability framed in the Convention. 4. Article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reinforces and specifies States’ obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters, consistent with the approach adopted by the Convention. Notably, during the negotiations on the Convention, the need to embrace a human rights-based approach to disability in the humanitarian protection of persons with disabilities led to the discarding of references to persons with disabilities as a “vulnerable” or “neglected” group in connection with emergency situations. The Geneva Conventions use terms such as “wounded” and “sick”, which, when used without further qualifications to refer to persons with disabilities, contradict the standards of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 11 of the Convention calls for international humanitarian law to be read through a human rights-based approach to disability. This will necessarily lead to substantive changes in policy and practice. 5. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has developed several standards in its concluding observations under article 11. States are required to adopt or 1 2 The full texts of submissions received are available on the OHCHR website at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Disability/Pages/StudiesReportsPapers.aspx. See for example the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1977. 3