Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
Adopted and opened for signature and ratification by General Assembly
resolution 61/106 of 13 December 2006
The States Parties to the present Protocol have agreed as follows:
Article 1
1. A State Party to the present Protocol (“State Party”) recognizes the competence of the Committee on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (“the Committee”) to receive and consider communications from or on behalf
of individuals or groups of individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by that
State Party of the provisions of the Convention.
2. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party to the Convention that is
not a party to the present Protocol.
Article 2
The Committee shall consider a communication inadmissible when:
(a) The communication is anonymous;
(b) The communication constitutes an abuse of the right of submission of such communications or is
incompatible with the provisions of the Convention;
(c) The same matter has already been examined by the Committee or has been or is being examined under
another procedure of international investigation or settlement;
(d) All available domestic remedies have not been exhausted. This shall not be the rule where the application of
the remedies is unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to bring effective relief;
(e) It is manifestly ill-founded or not sufficiently substantiated; or when
(f) The facts that are the subject of the communication occurred prior to the entry into force of the present
Protocol for the State Party concerned unless those facts continued after that date.
Article 3
Subject to the provisions of article 2 of the present Protocol, the Committee shall bring any communications
submitted to it confidentially to the attention of the State Party. Within six months, the receiving State shall
submit to the Committee written explanations or statements clarifying the matter and the remedy, if any, that
may have been taken by that State.
Article 4
1. At any time after the receipt of a communication and before a determination on the merits has been
reached, the Committee may transmit to the State Party concerned for its urgent consideration a request that
the State Party take such interim measures as may be necessary to avoid possible irreparable damage to the
victim or victims of the alleged violation.
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