Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities

Purpose of the mandate

Persons with disabilities face barriers in their participation as equal members of society. This mandate was created to

• Strengthen efforts to recognize, promote, implement and monitor the rights of persons with disabilities from a human rights-based approach, in line with the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the broader human rights framework
• Recall the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelatedness of all human rights and the need for persons with disabilities to be guaranteed the full enjoyment of these rights without discrimination.

Learn more about the rights of persons with disabilities

About the mandate

The Human Rights Council first established the mandate on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2014. The mandate was most recently renewed in 2020, through resolution A/HRC/RES/44/10.

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Current mandate holder

Mr. Gerard Quinn was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the Human Rights Council in October 2020.

He holds two research chairs at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute on Human Rights in the University of Lund (Sweden) and Leeds University (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). He previously held a chair at the National University of Ireland where he founded and directed the Centre on Disability Law & Policy. In Ireland, he served as a member of the Irish Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, Ireland Human Rights Commission, and on the Council of State.

Mr. Quinn was the lead «focal point» for the global network of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) during the negotiations leading to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and was head of delegation for Rehabilitation International during the UN Working Group (2004).

Read Mr. Quinn's full biography