Draft: International Treaty on the Rights of Older Persons

Introduction:

The United Nations has a very comprehensive Human Rights Treaty System. It includes a number of international human rights treaties. These treaties deal with different human rights issues such as children’s rights and racial discrimination, just to name a few. These treaties create a standard of achievement that all states are obligated to respect.

However, not all groups of persons or issues have a treaty specific to them. Older persons are one of those groups. While human rights treaties encompass the rights of older persons, the rights are not specifically written for older persons.

In this exercise, students will look at the treaties that include the rights of older persons and talk about why there is not a treaty specific to older persons. Then they will try to draft an international treaty about older persons.


Objectives:

• to understand the purpose of international human rights documents;

• to critically assess the adequacy of international documents in protecting human rights; and

• to draft an international human rights document.

Suggested time: 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours.

Materials:

Copies for each student of the following international documents. Can be printed from:

1.Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2.International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

3.International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

4.Convention concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation, International Labour Organisation Convention no.111

5.International Plan of Action on Ageing

Evaluation based upon:

• understanding of why certain groups of people are in need of special protection;

• ability to pick out clauses dealing with older persons; and

• ability to work together;

• creativity of responses.
  

Set up:

PART I:

Divide the class into delegations representing each of the following international documents:

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
3. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and
4. Convention concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation, International Labour Organisation
Convention no.111.


Ask the students to find the sections of their assigned document that deal with the rights of older persons. Using the following questions, the students should discuss these sections.

Questions:

1. What rights are being protected?
2. Why are these rights being protected?
3. Are the sections adequate to safeguard the rights of older persons?
4. Would you add to any sections or create any new ones to provide better protection to older persons?

PART II:

At this point the students will come together into one group to discuss their findings.

Then the students will begin to work together to draft an international document on the rights of older persons. They can use the international documents from Part I, including the International Plan of Action on Ageing as an example. They should aim to have about 15 clauses. The following questions will help focus the discussion:

Questions:

1. Why do you think there is not an international document specifically about older persons? Should there be one?
2. In drafting one, what rights do you think should be protected?
3. Are there any areas that you feel do not need to be protected?
4. Are any rights more important than others?

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