CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

VERONIKA BÍLKOVÁ CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ The two plans of action were both endorsed by the UN General Assembly. 21 Following up on the first of them, in 1991-1992, the Assembly adopted two soft law instruments related to older persons – the United Nations Principles for Older Persons 22 and the Proclamation on Ageing . 23 The former instrument confirms five principles that should serve as the basis for programmes in this area – independence, participation, care, self-fulfilment, and dignity. The latter instrument seeks to come up with practical recommendations related to ageing that States and the international community as a whole should implement. In the subsequent years, the General Assembly adopted several resolutions on older persons and it also declared 1999 as the International Year of Older Persons. 24 In 2010, as already noted, the Assembly established the Open-End Working Group on Ageing which holds regular debates and issue annual reports on various aspects of the protection of human rights of older persons. Furthermore, since the mid-2000s, the newly created UN Human Rights Council has also occasionally dealt with the agenda of human rights of older persons. In 2014, the Council established the post of an Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons and appointed Ms. Rosa Kornfeld-Matte from Chile to this post. Between 2014–2019, the Expert published five annual reports which map several important human rights problems that older persons face (such as autonomy and care or social exclusion). 25 B) Who are Older Persons in the UN System? The legal definition of a certain vulnerable group usually appears in the specialized human rights convention protecting this group. This is for instance so in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) , which in its Article 1 stipulates that “/f/or the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier”. Similarly, the 1990 ICMW defines migrant worker as “a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national” (Article 2(1)). And the 2006 CRPD notes that “/p/ersons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others” (Article 1). The only instruments which do not include definitions of the persons protested by them are either those which apply to all human beings (the 1966 International Covenants) or those where the criteria for the inclusion into the category seem, or seemed at the moment of the adoption of the instrument, obvious (the 1979 CEDAW ). Due to the absence of a specialized human rights treaty on older persons, there is no similar definition of this category. Nor can such a definition be found in other UN documents related to older persons (for instance the UN Principles for Older Persons). 21 See UN Doc. A/RES/37/51, Question of aging, 3 December 1982; A/RES/57/167, Follow-up to the SecondWorld Assembly on Ageing, 16 January 2003. 22 UN Doc. A/RES/46/91 , Implementation of the International Plan of Action on Ageing and related activities, 16 December 1991 (the resolution was adopted without a vote). 23 UN Doc. A/RES/47/5, Proclamation on Ageing, 16 October 1992 (the resolution was adopted without a vote). 24 UN Doc. A/RES/50/141, International Year of Older Persons: towards a society for all ages, 30 January 1996 (the resolution was adopted without a vote). 25 See UN Docs A/HRC/27/46, First annual report of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons providing preliminary views on the mandate, 24 July 2014; A/HRC/30/43, Autonomy and care of older persons, 13 August 2015; A/HRC/33/44, Comprehensive report, 8 July 2016; A/HRC/36/48, Robots and rights: the impact of automation on the human rights of older persons, 21 July 2017; A/HRC/39/50, Social exclusion: concepts, manifestations and the impact on the human rights of older persons, 10 July 2018.

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