General Comment 9, Rights of Children with Disabilities - Non-discrimination and Full Participation
General Comment 9, Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, CRC/C/GC/9 (February 27, 2007).
“General Comments” are written by United Nations Committees that are in charge of monitoring how well a government is doing at protecting the rights described in particular treaties. General Comments give more specific detail about how the rights included in the treaties should be implemented. General comments are not legally binding documents, but they do provide moral accountability and practical guidance for governments on how to guarantee human rights.
General Comment 9, written by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, describes the ways in which governments should comprehensively interpret and implement the articles of the Convention to ensure protection of the rights of children with disabilities. It details the government obligation to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability as recognized in article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and it considers Paragraph 1 of article 23, recognizing the importance of full participation and inclusion in society, to be the leading principle with regard to children with disabilities. Regarding inclusive education, the Committee defines inclusivity as a “set of values, principles and practices that seeks meaningful, effective and quality education for all students, that does justice to the diversity of learning conditions and requirements not only for children with disabilities, but for all students.”