A/HRC/40/54 I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Catalina Devandas-Aguilar, submits the present report to the Human Rights Council pursuant to resolution 35/6. It contains a description of the activities she carried out in 2018 and a thematic study on disability-specific forms of deprivation of liberty. The study aims to provide guidance to States on how to guarantee the right to liberty and security of persons with disabilities, paying particular attention to the process of ending deprivation of liberty based on impairment. 2. In preparing the study, the Special Rapporteur commissioned two studies 1 and analysed the responses to a questionnaire sent to Member States, national human rights institutions, agencies of the United Nations system, civil society organizations and persons with disabilities and their representative organizations. She received 40 responses. 2 II. Activities of the Special Rapporteur A. Country visits 3. In 2018, the Special Rapporteur visited Kuwait from 26 November to 5 December (report to be presented at the forty-third session of the Council). She thanks the Government of Kuwait for its cooperation prior to, during and after the visit. 4. The Special Rapporteur has agreed to undertake visits to Botswana, Canada, China and Norway. The Special Rapporteur has requested invitations to visit Benin, Cambodia, El Salvador and Viet Nam, and notes with appreciation the invitations to visit Algeria, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. B. Engagement with stakeholders 5. During the year, the Special Rapporteur participated in numerous conferences and expert meetings, including the fifty-sixth session of the Commission for Social Development; the annual interactive debate on the rights of persons with disabilities at the Human Rights Council; the European expert and stakeholder meeting to provide inputs for the ninth session of the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing; the Human Rights Council’s consultation on human rights and mental health; and the eleventh session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She also co-organized expert consultations on the right to health, the role of notaries and the role of the judiciary in the implementation of the Convention jointly with other United Nations experts, agencies, international civil society organizations, organizations of persons with disabilities and academia. 6. She continued actively promoting a system-wide approach to include the rights of persons with disabilities across the United Nations system, in coordination with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the Inter-Agency Support Group on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As part of this effort, she conducted a baseline study that will serve as the basis for the design of the United Nations systemwide approach to disability inclusion. 7. As mandated by the General Assembly, she engaged with the United Nations Statistical Division, the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal 1 2 P. Gooding and others, Alternatives to Coercion in Mental Health Settings: A Literature Review (University of Melbourne, 2018); and M. Gómez-Carrillo, E. Flynn and M. Pinilla, Global Study on Disability-Specific Forms of Deprivation of liberty (National University of Ireland Galway, forthcoming). See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Disability/SRDisabilities/Pages/LibertyAndSecurity.aspx. 3