A Brief Introduction on the UN’s 9th Working Session on Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing
Ageing is a biological factor in every person’s life, there is no way of stopping it completely no matter what, our bodies will go through physical changes within time. However, ageing also means a shift in our social, political and daily environments, and this is not a bad thing, because of medical and scientific advances, people are able to age often with much more comfort.
That said, it is not surprising that there has been a shift in the overall demographic age of the world population.
The fact is that between 2017 and 2030 the number of people, who will be 60 and over, will be greater than the number of youth as well as the number of children under 10 years old, stipulating a growth of 46 percent, to such a degree that the elderly population in twelve years will be estimated to be approximately 1.4 billion.
Discussion on the issues related to ageing and dignity of life have been a recurrent topic in the highest level human rights bodies, and yet still most governments have had very little consideration of older persons rights and needs. In an attempt to increase the protection of human rights for the elderly, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 46/91[1] in December 16, 1991, to establish the Principles for Older Persons, recommending governments to incorporate said principles into their national plans where ever possible.
Then, in 2002 the Second World Assembly adopted the Madrid Plan of Action, which in turn considers the 21st century issues regarding ageing, mainly focusing on three topics: (1) older persons and development; (2) advancing health and well being for the elderly; (3) and ensuring and enabling supportive environments.
However, such measures do not suffice, because universally the stereotype of elderly people remains quite negative, for they are still seen as incapable of making their own decisions, they are constantly denied access to the support care of their own choosing, and are not fully recognized as autonomous in most State legal systems and thus are often cast to the fringe of society.
Noting such issues, and recognizing the urgency to act on the possible challenges that will affect older people throughout the 21st Century, the UN General Assembly, in resolution 65/182 [2], established the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing. The main purpose of the Working Group is to enforce the protection of older people’s rights by scrutinizing the present international framework for older persons human rights.
The 9th Working Session, which was held at UN Headquarters in New York City, from July 23rd to 26th, of 2018, focused mainly on two topics: (1) the right to autonomy and independence of older people and (2) the obstacles that seniors face with long term care and support services, as well palliative care, which hopefully and eventually will be included in a future multilateral legal instrument to be enforced on an international level.
Thus discussion of these topics has been extensive. According to the World Health Organization, long-term care is the measures taken by others in order to provide “a level of functional ability consistent with (…) basic rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity” to people who are undergoing a significant loss of “intrinsic capacity [physical and mental capacities]”[3]. Palliative care is then defined as the measures that governmental and medical authorities must take when treating patients with “life-threatening illness” in other to ensure their quality of life, along with their families, by suffering, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as, “correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual” [4].
In order to better define the remaining topics, which are autonomy, independence and support, an international NGO known as HelpAge International, in consultation with the Working Group, conducted a report in 2018, with 450 people over 60 years old, from 24 different countries to better perceive how people over 60 view the main points that will be discussed on the 9th Working Session on Open-Ended Group on Ageing. According to the report, the interviewees defined autonomy as the “the ability to make choices and decisions, with support if necessary, according to one’s will and preferences”; independence as “the ability to perform actions of daily living and participate in society, with support if necessary, according to one’s will and preferences”; and support as “the act of providing help or assistance to someone who requires it to carry out daily activities and participate in society” [5] [6].
Furthermore, because present legislation and human rights treaties are so vastly inadequate, and because of a lack of legal, health and social measures to answer to older people’s rights, and lastly because in all consciousness, one of the main purposes of the Open-Ended Working Group is to legally protect the rights of the elderly; another major topic of the 9th Session that was consequently discussed was the “possible content for a multilateral legal instrument and identification of areas and issues where further protection and action is needed” [7].
Thus note that the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing is part of an ongoing high level UN process, beginning mainly with the Second World Assembly on Ageing in April 2002 where the Member states adopted the Madrid Plan Of Action, which then led to UN General Assembly Resolution 65/182 which established the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing, followed by UN General Assembly Resolution 72/144, reaffirming this process, thus hopefully culminating someday in an enforceable multilateral legal instrument fully protecting the rights of the world’s elderly population.
In this way, the world hopes to bring together through the usual UN high level process the nations of the world, civil society and other stakeholders (business, unions, academia, etc.) to work together on this issue, because after all, we all are going to age and/or die someday, so this struggle for rights is really a struggle for all of us, and our loved ones.
Please check out the official reports of the Ninth Working Session by clicking the link below:
https://social.un.org/ageing-working-group/ninthsession.shtm
References:
[1] OHCHR | United Nations Principles for Older Persons.” OHCHR | Convention on the Rights of the Child, www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OlderPersons.aspx. Accessed on 07/16/18
[2] A/RES/65/182 — E.” S/RES/1888(2009) — E, undocs.org/A/RES/65/182. Accessed on 07/16/18
[3] WHO, World Report on Ageing and Health, 2015, page 229
[4] WHO, Fact Sheets on Palliative Care www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs402/en. Accessed on 07/16/18
[5] HelpAge International, Freedom to decide for ourselves: What older people say about their rights to autonomy and independence, long-term care and palliative care, 2018 https://social.un.org/ageing-working-group/documents/ninth/Freedom%20to%20decide%202018%20English.pdf. Accessed on 07/16/18.
[6] Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, December 2016, A/HRC/34/58, paragraph 13. Accessed on 07/16/18
[7] Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing Ninth Working Session — Proposed Organization of Work. https://social.un.org/ageing-working-group/documents/ninth/FINAL_PoW_OEWG9_27June2018.pdf. Accessed on 07/16/18
[8] United Nations Official Document.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/72/144 . Accessed on 07/16/18.
