The start of an amazing week of events on inclusion and disability rights commences this week – the United Nations Conference of States Parties (CoSP) to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
CoSP is the largest and most diverse international disability meeting in the world. It brings together states that have ratified the United Nations CRPD. The purpose of CoSP is for states to discuss the implementation of the CRPD with respect to a theme.
This year will be the 13th session of CoSP and the over-arching theme will be “A decade of action and delivery for inclusive sustainable development: implementing the CRPD and the 2030 Agenda for all persons with disabilities.”
The conference is usually held in June each year at the United Nations in New York. However, it was postponed this year due to COVID-19 and will now be held in-person and online from 30th November – 4th December 2020.
We are pleased to say that we will be participating in CoSP again this year, and will be represented by our Vice President & International Coordinator, Mr Trevor Carroll. As AFDO is privileged to hold the sole Australian representative vote on Disabled People’s International (DPI), Mr Carroll will also be representing DPI for Australia at CoSP.
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
There are nine members of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities whose terms expire on 31st December this year. Australia’s representative, Ms Rosemary Kayess will continue to serve on the committee until 31st December 2022. However, Sir Robert Martin from New Zealand is up for re-election this year as his term expires in December. Sir Robert Martin is the first person with an intellectual disability to sit on a UN Committee, and AFDO fully supports his nomination for re-election to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
If you would like to watch the Conference of States Particies (CoSP), you can follow along at home as it will be streamed on http://webtv.un.org/. To learn more about CoSP and what’s on this year’s program, you can visit the CoSP13 webpage.
You can find out more about AFDO’s international representation on our International Activities webpage.
Rosemary Kayess – Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with Trevor Carroll – AFDO Vice President & International Coordinator at the Conference of States Parties (CoSP) at UN Headquarters.