A/HRC/22/25 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 19/11, the Human Rights Council requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to prepare a study on the work and employment of persons with disabilities, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including States, the International Labour Organization (ILO), regional organizations, the Special Rapporteur on disability of the Commission for Social Development, civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities, and national human rights institutions. The Council also requested that the study be made available on the OHCHR website, in an accessible format, prior to its twenty-second session. 2. OHCHR sent notes verbales to Member States and letters to ILO, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions and the Special Rapporteur on disability of the Commission for Social Development requesting responses to a set of questions related to work and employment of persons with disabilities. The annex to the present document contains a full list of respondents. All submissions are available on the OHCHR website.1 II. The right to work as a human right 3. The right to work is a fundamental human right. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights recognizes that everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment (art. 23, para. 1). The right to work is essential for realizing other human rights and forms an inseparable and inherent part of human dignity. Work usually provides livelihood to the person and her or his family, and insofar as work is freely chosen or accepted, it contributes to the person‟s development and recognition within the community. 4. The human right to work has been codified in several international legal instruments, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art. 27) being the most recent and detailed standard. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guarantees the right to work in a broad sense (art. 6). It explicitly develops the individual dimension of the right to work through the recognition of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work, in particular the right to safe working conditions (art. 7). The collective dimension of the right to work is addressed in article 8 of the Covenant, which enunciates the right of everyone to form trade unions and join the trade union of her or his choice as well as the right of trade unions to function freely. 5. The right to work is further guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Civil Rights (art. 8, para. 3 (a)); the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (art. 5, para. (e) (i)); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (art. 11, para. 1 (a)); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 32); and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (arts. 11, 25, 26, 40, 52 and 54). Several regional instruments recognize the right to work in its general dimension, including the European Social Charter of 1961 and the Revised European Social Charter of 1996 (part II, art. 1), the African Charter on Human and Peoples‟ Rights (art. 15) and the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 6). All of these 1 See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Disability/Pages/WorkAndEmployment.aspx. 3