In the space of seven years, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CeeRPD) established under Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of 13 December 2006 has decided on 13 individual complaints and issued two general comments dealing with equality before the law and accessibility. This paper builds upon this practice in order to analyse general CRPD principles with regard to the notion of disability, equality rights, the progressive realisation of economic and social rights, possible justification of interferences, methods of interpretation, a margin of appreciation accorded to State parties, and the relationship between different rights.
The CRPD is a hybrid convention with a holistic ambition, which emphasises equality rights while combining civil and political rights with economic and social rights. The CeeRPD tends to hold CRPD guarantees as being absolute, excluding any negative effects on grounds of disability. Even positive obligations are likely to be construed as obligations of result regardless of limited resources or competing interests. This engaged reading of the CRPD challenges current State practice. It corresponds to the advocatory role of the Committee as a highly qualified expert body for the rights of persons with disabilities.