A/HRC/22/25 others, have legislated that accessibility must be ensured in both private- and public-sector workplaces with more than a certain number of employees. 28. States should inform employers – irrespective of size or sector – about their positive obligation to identify barriers to equal access to the workplace by persons with disabilities and to take appropriate steps towards removing such barriers. Good practices to this end include awareness-raising efforts among employers on the need to implement regulations relating to the creation of a barrier-free, disability-friendly environment, and the development of guidelines on accessibility and universal design for employers. D. Reasonable accommodation in the workplace 29. The Convention defines reasonable accommodation as “necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms” (art. 2). With regard to work and employment, States parties are required to take appropriate steps, including through legislation, to ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided to persons with disabilities in the workplace (art. 27, para. 1 (i)). The aim of any accommodation measure in the workplace is to enable the person for whom it is implemented to participate fully and equally in working life. 30. The Convention establishes that denial of reasonable accommodation constitutes discrimination on the basis of disability. Therefore, States must ascertain that the duty to ensure reasonable accommodation is introduced in their legislation and anti-discrimination legislation should define denial of reasonable accommodation as a form of discrimination. 13 31. Under the Convention, employers, service providers and others have a legal obligation to provide reasonable accommodation to persons with disabilities. Legislation must stipulate that both public- and private-sector employees are responsible for providing reasonable accommodation to individual employees with disabilities. Governments should develop policies which promote and regulate flexible and alternative work arrangements that reasonably accommodate the individual needs of employees with disabilities. Such policies should include, inter alia, adjustment and modification of machinery and equipment, modification of job content, working time and work organization, and adaptation of the work environment to provide access to the workplace, in order to facilitate the employment of individuals with disabilities. 14 32. Submissions to the study revealed that the introduction of reasonable accommodation in disability-related legislation has been slow in many countries. 15 Apart from certain common-law jurisdictions, only a few States that contributed to the study have introduced the concept in their national legislation as required by the Convention. In fact, the concept of reasonable accommodation (an individual requirement) is often confused with accessibility measures (a general requirement) or positive measure schemes. 13 14 15 The Committee has consistently urged States parties to establish, including in legislation, that denial of reasonable accommodation constitutes discrimination. ILO, Managing disability in the workplace: ILO code of practice, (Geneva, 2002), p. 3, sect. 1.4. The concept of reasonable accommodation was introduced in the United States of America 1968 Civil Rights Act and subsequently applied in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; comparable legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and in Australia uses the term “reasonable adjustment;” and European Union Council Directive 2000/78/EC states that reasonable accommodation for disabled persons shall be provided in the area of employment (art. 5). 9