Conference Of States Parties (COSP)

Since the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) came into force in 2008, there has been a yearly conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for countries that have ratified the convention to talk about how they are putting it into practice and anything related to that.

Each year’s COSP has a theme, like “Making the CRPD count for Women and Children” or “Inclusion and full participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in the implementation of the Convention”. You can read about past sessions on the UN website.

The day before the main COSP, there is a Civil Society Forum where Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and civil society (i.e. not part of the government) organisations participating in COSP have their own discussions in preparation for the main program.

This is an opportunity to highlight current issues relevant to the disability movement and realisation of the CRPD, and to share and capture what civil society sees as some current standing issues.

We participate in COSP as part of DPO Australia. You can read about what we’ve done at past sessions on the DPO Australia website.

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