That’s happening on the opening day of the 17th session of the Conference of States Parties (COSP17) to the game-changing Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, taking place from 11 to 13 June 2024.

From being a delegate at COSP16 to taking over UN News’s live blog at COSP17, the activist with Down syndrome said his mission is to amplify voices and drive change, including on this year’s themes of jobs, tech and humanitarian responses in times of crisis.

Here’s more from our guest editor ahead of COSP17:

“What I’m most looking forward to is connecting with others and meeting other people who care about the same things I do. Last year, I made new friends and shared stories, which was really cool.

I also looking forward to accessibility and inclusion. One thing that really stood out to me last year was how everyone talked about making things easier for people with disabilities. It was great to see so many people care about making the world a better place for us.

I’m from Canada and am passionate about disability rights. I’m a part of the L’Arche community in Toronto. L’Arche has nearly 160 communities in 37 countries around the world, fostering inclusive relationships where people with and without intellectual disabilities make each other’s lives better.

Jobs, tech and humanitarian crises

This year, the focus at COSP17 is on tech, jobs and humanitarian crises through a lens of people with disabilities. Technology is changing the way we live and work, and it’s no different for people with disabilities.

We’re going to be discussing how advancements in technology can create new opportunities and support for individuals like us. From accessibility features in smartphones to assistive devices in the workplace, tech has the power to level the playing field and enhance our lives.

Unfortunately, conflicts and wars around the world disproportionately affect people with disabilities, and I’ve seen first-hand the challenges faced by individuals in L’Arche communities in conflict zones. COSP17 is going to be shedding light on these issues and advocating for better support and protection for those affected by conflict.

When it comes to jobs, finding and maintaining employment can be tough for anyone, but it can be especially challenging for people with disabilities. Discrimination, lack of accessibility and stigma are just some of the barriers we face. Through discussions, we’ll be working towards solutions to improve employment opportunities and ensure equal rights for all.

These issues are important to me and so is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

How tech helps me as a person with a disability

Technology plays a crucial role in enhancing my life as a person with a disability, enabling me to connect, communicate and comprehend information more easily and independently. Here’s how:

Staying connected: Technology lets me stay connected with friends, family and the world around me. Whether it’s through social media, video calls or messaging apps, I can stay in touch no matter where I am. You can even follow me on Instagram!

Better communication: Tech tools like speech-to-text, text-to-speech and communication apps help me communicate more easily. They make it simpler for me to express myself and understand others, whether I’m chatting with friends or participating in meetings. For example, I’ll be using WhatsApp to stay connected with our L’Arche team while here at COSP17 in New York City.

Understanding information: Technology helps me understand information. With tools like screen readers, magnifiers and accessible websites, I can access and understand information more effectively, empowering me to learn, work and engage in various activities.

Nick Herd working as a creative consultant on the set of a short movie production for L’Arche Canada and the United States in March 2022.

3 ways employment changed my life

As a person with a disability, jobs matter. What’s most important is being included.

My animated film Freebird was long-listed for an Academy Award in 2021. It was a big deal. It showed that people with disabilities can shine in the spotlight too. Working on the film as a creative director was a highlight of my career.

Working together is also crucial. Collaboration is key in my acting gigs. Working with others helps us all come up with better ideas and make great things happen.

Equally important is being able to express myself. As an artist and freelancer, having a job means I can bring my unique perspective to the table. It lets me be myself and show what I can do, which is pretty awesome.

Dignity and disability

Every single person deserves to feel safe and respected in their life. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, whether you have a disability or not – being treated badly is never okay. Whether it’s at school, work or anywhere else, bullying, mistreatment and neglect should never be tolerated.

In tough times like emergencies, disasters or wars, it’s super important for governments to do everything they can to keep us safe. They have to follow the rules set by the world to make sure everyone is okay.

It’s crucial to remember that no one should ever be forgotten or left out. We all have the right to be protected and valued.

Nick Herd (right) and his colleague Warren Pot from L’Arche Canada are interviewed at the United Nations.

Human rights for all

Why do humanitarian rights matter to me as a person with a disability? Human rights are not just words on paper; they are essential for people like me to live fulfilling lives and contribute meaningfully to society. I can think of three reasons why.

Getting the help I need: Humanitarian rights ensure I can access essential resources and support services, like healthcare, education, jobs and tools tailored to my needs, helping me to live with dignity and independence.

Feeling included: These rights promote inclusivity by fighting against discrimination based on disability. They ensure fair treatment for everyone, combating stereotypes and stigma. With humanitarian rights, society becomes more welcoming, where everyone’s contributions are valued.

Speaking up for change: When it comes to conflicts, we know that people with disabilities are hit harder in wars. As part of L’Arche, we have communities in places like Haiti, Bethlehem and Ukraine that experience this. Belonging to the supportive community of L’Arche gives us solidarity, strength and resilience to come together during these difficult times. With the support of humanitarian rights, we can make sure that people with disabilities aren’t forgotten when things get tough.

Rights and opportunity

Living a dignified life means having all the rights that make us human. Everyone should have the right to make choices for themselves, like what they want to do or where they want to go. We all deserve a safe place to call home and enough food to eat every day.

COSP17 starts on Tuesday at UN Headquarters.

Communication is super important too! It’s crucial that people talk to us in ways we understand. That way, we can express ourselves and be understood by others. And it’s not just about talking. Everyone should have the same chances to get healthcare, go to school and find a job they love.

Governments play a big role in making sure these rights are protected, and it is so important to have our voices heard. People with disabilities deserve the support they need to live a happy, fulfilling life.

COSP is all about making sure that everyone, no matter their abilities, has a fair chance in life. It’s a place to create change for the better.

Let’s work together to make sure everyone has the rights and opportunities we deserve.

See you on 11 June when I take over the UN News live blog. We’re going live at 8am. I hope you will join us!”

Stay tuned to UN News here.

The landmark legally binding treaty entered into force on 3 May 2008, marking a major milestone in the effort to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for all.

Ahead of the 17th Conference of States Parties (COSP17) that starts on 11 June, here are five fast facts about the Convention and how it continues to impact the lives of 1.3 billion men, women and children living with disabilities around the world:

1. Why the world needs the Convention

People with disabilities face discrimination and the denial of their human rights around the world. Society’s barriers are the problem, not individual impairments.

That’s why the Convention exists.

The Convention is a human rights treaty that sets out how to make a world disability inclusive.

The goal is to create an enabling environment so that people living with disabilities can enjoy real equality in society.

A nine-year-old child plays seesaw with her friends in an inclusive playground at her school in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan.

2. Protected rights

The Convention emphasises that people living with disabilities must have their dignity respected and their voices heard and should be involved in making decisions that affect their lives. That includes all rights, from freedom of speech and education to healthcare and employment.

The treaty tells countries to remove obstacles that prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in all fields, from technology to politics.

It addresses those barriers, including discrimination and accessibility, and also calls for equality for women and girls. In addition, the treaty maps out ways countries around the world can remove barriers preventing people with disabilities from fully enjoying all their rights.

Despite all technical difficulties of leaving home, Dmitry Kuzuk does his own shopping and leads independent life in Moldova. (file)

3. How the treaty is enforced

There are several ways the Convention is enforced, respected and implemented.

Individuals can bring petitions to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to report breaches of their rights.

“The mere existence of the Convention gives persons with disabilities and their organisations the ability to say to their governments ‘you have accepted these obligations’ and insist that they be met.” said Don MacKay, chair of the committee that drafted the treaty.

The 18-member Geneva-based committee can also undertake inquires of grave or systematic violations of the Convention and monitors whether rights are being properly applied, online and off in times of peace and of war and other crises.

UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

A young boy attends a panel discussion on health and wellbeing at an event held on the occasion of World Down Syndrome Day at UN Headquarters. (file)

4. A seat at the table

A key to progress is bringing people whose rights are affected to the table.

This year, hundreds of delegates from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are coming to New York to take part in the latest Conference of State Parties, COSP17, to be held in June 2024, one of the largest global meetings on disability rights.

Since the time the treaty was negotiated, the perspectives and input of people living with disabilities are being heard at meetings at the UN and in countries around the world.

The bigger table at UN Headquarters now accommodates accessibility requirements, including wheelchair access, hearing loops usage, documentation in Braille, large print or sign language usage.

Music legend and UN Messenger of Peace Stevie Wonder addresses the General Assembly’s high-level meeting on disability and development in 2013. (file)

5. In the spotlight

Global celebrities like the singer-songwriter and UN Messenger of Peace Stevie Wonder, who is visually impaired, have also added their voice.

“Someone being sighted doesn’t mean that they should be blind to those things in the world that we need to fix,” Mr. Wonder said, noting that there are 300 million visually impaired people around the world.

“We really are abled persons with different abilities. We have to have inclusion.”

Watch UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive on how the music icon challenged assumptions about Braille: here.

“I think there are certain sort of stereotypes that we hear about autism, and I’ve learned very quickly through meeting people who either were parents of autistic children or meeting people with autism that those sort of stereotypes don’t really exist,” actor Dakota Fanning told UN News in a conversation about her role as Wendy, who is autistic, in the film Please Stand By.

“So, I felt that I didn’t I want to further the stereotypes and that I wanted to really portray her as I would portray any other young woman,” she said.

Nick Herd in the UN General Assembly Hall for COSP16. (file)

“I have lived with discrimination for part of my life,” said Canadian activist, actor and talk show host Nick Herd, who was born with Down syndrome.

“When I was young, and growing up, I was bullied because of my disability, but now I can use that voice, from the child that I was, to be heard, louder and louder. I can shout it on the top of a building or off a mountain, bigger than the UN so that persons with disabilities are included at the table.”

© Giles Duley/Legacy of War Foundation

Giles Duley has dedicated his work as a photographer to document the impacts of war. He himself was severely wounded in Afghanistan and continues to fight on all fronts to heal his own wounds and those of others.

“In war, those with disabilities are often represented as victims, denied equality in humanitarian support and excluded from peace processes,” said renowned photographer Giles Duley, the first UN Global Advocate for persons with disabilities in conflict and peacebuilding situations.

“It is time for change, and if we work together, we have the strength and opportunity to create that change.”

Who’s on board?

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was opened for signature in 2006. Here’s who is on board:

UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, waiting to be signed by representatives of Member States in 2006. (file)

• As of today, 191 nations and UN observers have ratified the treaty, and 106 have ratified its Optional Protocol
• Since the Convention entered into force in 2008, the UN and its agencies have worked towards amplifying its provisions
• The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims to leave no one behind in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• The Summit of the Future intends to realign international cooperation to be inclusive across the board
• Check out the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy
• The Convention and its Optional Protocol established annual meetings of treaty signatories – the “Conference of States Parties” (COSP) – to monitor implementation and discuss current themes and trends, with this year’s COSP17 focusing on jobs, tech and humanitarian emergencies at a meeting at UN Headquarters from 11 to 13 June 2024
• Learn about the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities here
• Follow past and present annual Conferences of States Parties (COSP) here

Details of that development and the “unprecedented devastation” to the Palestinian jobs market and the wider economy beyond Gaza and the West Bank are outlined in a new report from the ILO.

Ahead of its publication, the UN agency’s Director-General Gilbert Houngbo told the 112th International Labour Conference in Geneva on Thursday that the labour market in Gaza had “literally collapsed” since “horrific” Hamas-led terror attacks against Israel last October, that sparked Israel’s “relentless war”. 

“Today Gaza is in ruins. Livelihoods are shattered and work is scarce. Labour rights have been decimated,” he said. “This has been the hardest year for Palestinian workers since 1967. Never before has the situation been this bleak.”

Hard data 

According to data crunched by the ILO and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, unemployment in the Gaza Strip has reached 79.1 per cent. 

Although not directly impacted by the war, the occupied West Bank has also been severely impacted by the crisis, with almost one in three unemployed.

“These figures bring the average rate of unemployment to 50.8 per cent across the two areas of the OPT,” said the authors of The situation of Workers in the Occupied Arab Territories, before noting the true figure was likely even higher as it did not include individuals who had left the labour force altogether because of a lack of opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, overall economic output in Gaza has contracted by 83.5 per cent and by 22.7 in the West Bank over the past eight months, while the entire OPT economy has shrunk by nearly 33 per cent.

Health relief breakthrough

In related developments in Gaza on Friday, the UN health agency announced despite “significant constraints”, one fully-laden truck and a partially stacked trailer carrying medical relief had reached Gaza via the southern crossing of Kerem Shalom.

“The supplies will be distributed to health facilities to support the treatment of up to 44,000 people,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X. 

The assistance comprises treatments for noncommunicable diseases such as hypertension and cardiac conditions, type 2 diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases but much more relief is needed urgently via the still-closed Rafah crossing, the UN health agency insisted.

In a separate update, the WHO reported that 464 attacks on healthcare in the Gaza Strip have been documented since 7 October.

“Attacks have resulted in 727 fatalities, 933 injuries, affected 101 health facilities and 113 ambulances,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in another post on X. 

“Two-fifths (37 per cent) of attacks were in Gaza City, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) in north Gaza, and over a quarter (28 per cent) in Khan Younis. WHO calls for the respect of international law and active protection of civilians and health care,” the UN agency insisted.

Rafah

In Rafah, fewer than 100,000 people now remain across the southern governorate, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported late Thursday.

This follows the forced evacuation “of about a million people – who were again on the run” and moving toward Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, OCHA said, adding that the ongoing hostilities had massively disrupted the delivery of lifesaving relief.

The halt to fuel deliveries via Rafah crossing from Egypt had multiple negative ramifications, the UN aid office explained, as it affected “trucks, hospitals, sewage systems, desalination operations and bakeries”.

“As things stand, aid convoys still need to navigate active hostilities, barely passable roads, unexploded ordnance, and recurrent delays,” OCHA said.

Israel-Lebanon border clashes a grave concern: Guterres

The continuing exchange of fire between Israeli forces and militants in southern Lebanon along the UN-patrolled Blue Line frontier are a source of grave concern, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.

In a statement issued in the evening from his Spokesperson’s Office in New York, the UN chief called for an urgent ceasefire.

He remains gravely concerned that the exchanges of fire have not only ravaged communities close to the Blue Line but have also impacted deeper into the territories of both Lebanon and Israel, with the use of increasingly destructive weapons”, the statement continued.

“These exchanges of fire could trigger a broader conflict with devastating consequences for the region.”