The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007.As on 1st December 2007 there were 118 signatories of the Convention, 66 signatories of the Optional Protocol, 7 ratifications of the Convention and 3 ratifications of the Optional Protocol. India has signed the Convention and ratified it on 1st October 2007 but till that date had not signed the Optional Protocol, as per the information displayed on the website of the Convention.

This Convention had the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations. It marks a “paradigm shift” in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities.

The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.

For more information please visit :http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/signature.shtml