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INTERNATIONAL POSITIONS + SUBMISSIONS
While DJNO's work is primarily about things happening in Ontario, we also take part in the wider world of disability justice organizing! With that in mind, we actively work to support work done with and by our partners around the world.
We formally endorsed two submissions at this time, the first submission was prepared by a wide group of disability organizations across Canada, stewarded by Indigenous Disability Canada and ARCH Disability Law Centre. This submission relates a broad set of ongoing issues from the ongoing process of the CRPD inside of so-called Canada.
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"Our Report provides a response to most articles of the CRPD within the context of the List of Issues for Canada, Canada’s Report, and the 2017 Concluding Observations on the initial report of Canada.
Our Report highlights key concerns of disability communities. Through community discussions, the following five areas were identified as prevalent needs shared throughout this Report:
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Need to abolish harmful policies and laws that violate the CRPD, including: institutionalization, seclusion, segregation, restraints, forced treatment, and Track 2 MAiD for people with disabilities who are not dying;
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Need to increase individualized funding and availability of services and supports to ensure that people with disabilities can live with dignity and independence in communities of their choice;
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Need for all levels of government (federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal) to increase and coordinate their measures to implement CRPD rights;
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Need for more meaningful involvement and participation of diverse disability communities and organizations of persons with disabilities in the development of disability-related laws, policies, programs and services; and
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Need to collect and disaggregate data on a variety of disability rights issues, and make the data publicly available."
UN CRPD Submissions
In 2025, DJNO endorsed two major submissions for the 32nd Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The UN CRPD is the international body which oversees the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and serve as the "body of independent experts which monitors implementation of the Convention by the States parties".
We formally endorsed two submissions at this time, the second submission was prepared by a wide group of disability and civil society organizations across Canada, prepared by the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the
Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. This submission relates to Canada's ongoing Arms Sales to Israel and the disablement of Palestinians through this support of genocide.
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"This submission illustrates how Canada's persistent shortcomings in this regard negatively impact people with disabilities abroad. Specifically, Canada’s failure to adequately regulate the arms exports that help enable Israel’s atrocities in Gaza contributes to serious violations of the rights of people with disabilities. ...
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Partially discontinuing direct arms exports to Israel, while continuing to allow exports to Israel’s primary arms supplier free of any oversight or control, is inadequate to discharge Canada's obligations under the CRPD. As a group of UN experts, including various Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and UN Working Groups, emphasized in a statement of 20 June 2024, the obligation to cease military exports to Israel extends to “indirect transfers through intermediary countries that could ultimately be used by Israeli forces, particularly in the ongoing attacks on Gaza.”
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As such, the authors submit that Canada is in serious breach of its obligations under CRPD, including Articles 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25 and 32, and recommend that Canada take various measures to put itself back in compliance.
Additional Submissions have been developed by other organizations that were not formally endorsed before submission or were from prior sessions, but are important for further review: