The UK finally ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 8 June 2009. The Convention aims to ensure that disabled people enjoy the same rights as everyone else. Although it does not give disabled people any additional rights, it reaffirms that disabled people should be treated in the same way as everyone else, giving them rights to dignity, freedom, equality and justice. The UK has been working towards ratification since it signed the Convention in March 2007.

Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Disabled People, said: ‘The ratification of the Convention is a very significant landmark, for disabled people and for UK Government and society as a whole. Not only does it show the Government's commitment to equality of human rights for disabled people, but our determination to achieve equality by 2025.

‘Now that we have ratified we can start implementing the Convention, building on the approach towards disability equality set out in our 2005 report Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. We aim to start the Parliamentary process for ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention shortly.’

Further details are available from the Department for Work and Pensions website.