Tag: CRPD
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Validity calls on the Irish EU Presidency to restore disability rights safeguards in the next EU budget
Validity Foundation has submitted a briefing to the Irish Government calling for the reinstatement of disability rights conditionality in the European Union’s next long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034. Under the current 2021-2027 framework, Member States must satisfy two enabling conditions before accessing EU structural funds: a horizontal condition requiring compliance with the UN Convention…
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Validity joins urgent call to Council of Europe Committee of Ministers to withdraw dangerous legislative proposal legitimising psychiatric coercion
The Validity Foundation has joined twelve other leading European organisations and networks of persons with disabilities to demand the urgent and immediate withdrawal of the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention. Full joint statement below. If adopted by the Council of Europe’s highest decision-making body, the Committee of Ministers, the Additional Protocol would be…
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Validity at COSP19: Advancing Disability Rights Through Strategic Litigation and International Advocacy
At the 19th Session of the Conference of States Parties (COSP19) to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), held at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Validity Foundation brought its unique strategic litigation expertise to a series of high-level discussions on disability rights, international justice, and deinstitutionalisation. As one of…
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Regulation on the Protection of Adults
EU citizens with disabilities continue to be stripped of their legal capacity in many Member States by way of systems of ‘guardianship’. When this happens, they are not allowed to make decisions about their lives, like where and with whom to live, or how to spend their money. Countries often frame this as ‘protection’, but…
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Kenya: High Court’s affirmation of persons with disabilities’ legal capacity a welcome step forward
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Validity Foundation, and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights welcome the judgment of the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi (the Court) in the recent case of Wilson Nderitu Macharia v I&M Bank Limited in which the High Court affirmed that persons with disabilities have the right to obtain the services of private banks on an equal basis with all others, without being…
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A Call for Action: Maria’s Fight for Safety, Freedom, and Her Child
“Will my child live with me? Will my child and I be together? She said my name 4–5 times. God bless you for helping me.” – Maria Maria (name changed) is a young woman with an intellectual disability in Georgia, whose life has been marked by the kinds of violence no one should ever have to endure. At the age of just 14, she was forced into marriage with a man far older…
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Zambia’s Historic First: Legal capacity Communication submitted to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
On 21 August 2025, The Validity Foundation, together with the Mental Health Users Network of Zambia (MHUNZA) and Disability Rights Watch (DRW) with the technical support of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), have submitted a landmark communication to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission).…
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Access to justice and to an effective remedy are crucial for children with disabilities
Without access to justice and to an effective remedy children with disabilities are often forgotten about, institutionalised and ill-treated. In the case of V.I. v. The Republic of Moldova, Validity convincingly argued before the European Court of Human Rights that the denial of access to justice for children with disabilities is rarely an individual violation…
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Validity Contributes to ACERWC Special Rapporteur’s forthcoming Guidance Note to State parties to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
On 10 June 2025, Validity submitted a written submission to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) in response to the Call for Submissions by ACERWC Special Rapporteur on Birth Registration, Name and Nationality in Africa. The submission highlights key challenges and opportunities related to the digitalisation of…
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Woman with Lived Experience of Institutionalisation Wins Landmark Case Against Psychiatric Hospital in Bulgaria
On 23 April 2025, a district court in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, awarded substantial damages to Tanya Petkova, a woman with psychosocial disabilities, for repeated periods of psychiatric detention and coercive practices violating her dignity and autonomy and for the trauma inflicted upon her. The decision is a rare judicial acknowledgment of the impacts of intersecting…