On April 26, 2022, at its sixty-fourth session, the Committee on Policy for Persons with Disabilities compiled their views to be submitted in conjunction with the Government's response to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee).

Under Article 35, paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Convention), each State Party submits a Government Report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations within two years after the Convention becomes effective in the State Party (and every four years after that). The Government Report concerns the measures taken to implement the State parties’ obligations under the Convention for review by the CRPD Committee. The review process by the CRPD Committee uses the reporting procedure as follows:

Given the Government Report, the CRPD Committee prepares and adopts a List of Issues, which includes inquiries, to be transmitted to the government. The government then replies to the List of Issues, which is deemed to constitute the Government Report. Next, the CRPD Committee examines the responses. Afterwards, the government representatives and the CRPD Committee have a Constructive Dialogue, and finally, the CRPD Committee adopts its recommendations in the form of Concluding Observations.

The Concluding Observations of the CRPD Committee is the main outcome of the review process, based on the issues discussed during the Constructive Dialogue with the reviewed country. It indicates not only the positive things, such as the progress achieved but also areas of concern and recommendations to improve the implementation of the reviewed country. In some cases, the government must report the results of the improvements to the CRPD Committee.

Currently, our country is in the process of submitting our government responses to the List of Issues to the CRPD Committee. The 27th session of the CRPD Committee will be held from August 15 to September 9, 2022, at which the Concluding Observations will be adopted, and the government's responses shall have been prepared for the session.

In the Government Report submitted in June 2016 (the First Report of Japan), the document titled "Sorting of Discussions" written by the Committee on Policy for Persons with Disabilities was attached as an annex to monitor the domestic implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This time, "Views of the Committee on Policy for Persons with Disabilities pertaining to the Implementation Status of the Convention" has been compiled, which added and revised the previous document based on the progress made in promoting the enjoyment of the rights set forth in the Convention and the remaining issues.

The Views of the Committee on Policy for Persons with Disabilities continue to focus on the eight areas identified in the submission of the Initial Report of the Government of Japan as areas of particular importance and major challenges. In addition, newly added are Articles 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 30, and 33, considered to have made progress or raised concerns since the submission of the Initial Report.

The compilation identified areas where significant progress has been made and areas where there are issues, such as the direction of measures. Those areas are described separately.

The issues include same-sex caregiving for women with disabilities, abuse of children with disabilities, information accessibility in pre- and post-disaster period as well as evacuation, long-term hospitalization and restraints in psychiatric treatment, and counting people with intractable diseases in the employment rate of persons with disabilities.

The report will be translated into English and submitted to the CRPD Committee.

For more information, please visit the website below.
https://www8.cao.go.jp/shougai/suishin/seisaku_iinkai/index.html