E-Access Bulletin Live

Diane Mulligan OBE, one of the UK’s leading national and international disability rights campaigners and advisors, has been elected to the United Nations Expert Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The committee, of 18 independent experts, monitors implementation of the convention by “states parties” – countries who have signed up to it. Its work includes assessing individual country’s reports on how they have implemented the measures of the convention, taking into account what improvements have been made and difficulties faced since the last report.

The 2012 committee elections for the term 2013-16 took place in New York on 12 September at the fifth conference of states parties to the convention. Mulligan was elected with 84 votes as one of nine members newly elected or re-elected to the body, and will sit as the only UK member.

In a written statement on Mulligan’s appointment, Maria Miller MP, formerly Minister for Disabled People and more recently appointed as Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport and Minister for Women and Equality, said: “Diane is in every respect an outstanding candidate: experienced in advocating for disability rights, familiar with the expert committee, and a consummate professional who has advised more than 20 states on disability and human rights issues.”

This is not the first time Mulligan has been involved with the UN, as she currently co-chairs the organisation’s Task Group with the International Disability and Development Consortium, and is a member of the Task Force on Accessibility for the UN Human Rights Council. She is also a member of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Disability Committee, and of Equality 2025, an independent non-governmental body which advises the UK government on disability issues.

Mulligan was the subject of a recent video interview for the Go ON Gold campaign ( bit.ly/L88fjB ), a national awareness-raising campaign on access to new technologies by disabled people led by E-Access Bulletin publisher Headstar. In a previous interview with the bulletin, she spoke about how technology has assisted her in both working and personal life: bit.ly/hlycAq .

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 at 10:17 am and is filed under Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.