3rd Meeting, 1st session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Older Persons (IGWG)

Good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished participants. I declare open the 3rd meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Human Rights of Older Persons. This afternoon, we'll start our plenary discussions under Item 4. As we begin this segment of our discussion entitled Not Building from Scratch, it is important to ground our deliberations in the substantial body of the work that has already been taken. The Human Rights Council, in establishing this intergovernmental process, was clear in its guidance. It called upon us to take into account the rich inputs of all stakeholders, as well as extensive findings and recommendations developed over 14 sessions of the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing. These include its recommendation to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to promote and protect the full enjoyment of all human rights by older persons. We are also guided by the broader normative framework that already exists. This includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; the United Nations Principles for Older Persons; and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. Successive General Assembly and Human Rights Council resolutions have further deepened our collective understanding of both the challenges and the gaps in the protection of the human rights of older persons. In addition, we have before us a wealth of analysis and expertise from the Secretary-General, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and independent experts on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons. Regional developments in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe also demonstrate that normative progress is required. Taken together, this body of work represents a solid foundation. It reflects years of dialogue, evidence gathering and reflection across regions and stakeholders. Our task, therefore, is not to begin anew, but to build on this foundation in a focused and pragmatic manner. The question before us is how best to carry forward this accumulated knowledge and translate it into meaningful progress for the full enjoyment by older persons and Older Human Rights Everywhere. I encourage all delegations to draw on these existing contributions as we exchange views today, with a view to advancing our common objective: ensure the full recognition and realization of the human rights of older persons on an equal basis with others. With this in mind, I would now like to turn to our invited experts who will help us provide some background on these issues and reflect on how this accumulated body of work can guide our discussions going forward. I will now give the floor to the discussant of the present segment, Mr. Stefano Venâncio Guerra, from the Permanent Mission of Portugal in New York, who will offer reflections from a member state perspective and also introduce our distinguished panelists for this segment.

Thank you, Thank you.

Thank you very much for, for giving me the floor, and thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I will make a brief presentation, and then I'll hand over the floor to my co-panelists. So, the Intergovernmental Working Group It's true, it's a new process, but it's not beginning with a blank page. It inherits more than a decade of analysis, negotiation, and consensus-building across the UN system and by the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging in New York. Over 14 sessions, the Open-Ended Working Group has brought together Member States, UN entities, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, and older persons themselves. Its work generated an extensive body of evidence. Substantive and normative discussions touched upon a wide range of topics, including equality and non-discrimination, autonomy and independence, access to justice, social protection, health and long-term care, violence, abuse, and ageism. And the list is not exhaustive. The issue was never whether older persons enjoy human rights. They unquestionably do. The question was whether the existing human rights framework adequately protects those rights in practice. This brings me to the more recent intergovernmental process that Portugal co-led with Brazil in New York during the intersessional period between the 13th and 14th session of the Working Group. The mandate of that intersessional exercise was carefully framed to consider the existing international framework relating to the human rights of older persons, identify possible gaps in protection, and consider how best to address them. The co-facilitators were to submit proposed intergovernmental negotiated recommendations to be considered at the 14th session of the Working Group and to be presented later to the General Assembly. Importantly, this process did not begin from assumptions about the outcome. Instead, it created a structured space, a structured space for Member States to examine the evidence that had accumulated through years of discussions of the Open-Ended Working Group. The outcome document of that process, adopted by consensus, contained 3 main areas addressing the mandate given by Decision 13/1. And was built upon the responses received to the questionnaire shared by the co-facilitators. Its core was the listing of recommendations on how to best address the gaps, not only citing concrete examples, but also asking Member States to mainstream ageing across UN agenda and national legislation, but also raising ambition to the human rights of older persons. It was up to Member States to decide what and how the recommendations would be used in the future. The core group of the resolution on the human rights of older persons here in Geneva decided to take up one of the recommendations, which is the one fitting within the mandate of the Human Rights Council. The list of recommendations was not produced in order of importance, and even more gave space to Member States and UN entities to advance also on other recommendations. I note here, for example, the work that WHO is doing on the Decade of Healthy Aging or regional commissions with MIPAA. Several important points emerged from the intersessional work in New York. First, there was broad recognition that population aging has transformed the human rights landscape in ways that existing human rights did not— existing instruments, sorry, did not fully anticipate. Second, many delegations acknowledged that older persons continue to experience systemic discrimination, exclusion, and barriers to the enjoyment of their rights, despite the existence of generally applicable human rights treaties. And third, discussions demonstrated that implementation challenges and normative gaps are not mutually exclusive. Better implementation of existing obligations remains essential, but at the same time, many States recognize that the absence of explicit standards on issues particularly affecting older persons contributes to inconsistent protection, fragmented interpretation, and limited visibility. For example, this was further elaborated by OACHR in the 2012 Analytical Outcome Study on the normative standards in international human rights law, in relation to older persons and its update of 2021. The process in New York therefore moved beyond the question of whether challenges exist. It focused increasingly on how they should be addressed. That work should provide the analytical baseline for this Working Group, by ensuring that voices of older persons, NHRIs, UN mechanisms, and civil society which were central to the Open-Ended Working Group, continue to inform this new process. The task before this Working Group is therefore not to determine whether there is work to be done. That question has already been carefully examined. The task is to build on what already exists, address the gaps that have been identified, and strengthen the international protection of the human rights of older persons in a manner that is coherent, human rights, and evidence-based and responsive to today's demographic realities. I now hand over to Mr. Alexandre da Silva, the National Secretary of Brazil for the Human Rights of Older Persons. Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I would like to thank you, the Argentina chair of this Working Group, for the invitation to participate in the discussion. I send my greetings to my fellow panelists and to all participants, especially the older persons. As the title of our discussions indicates, the development legally by the international instrument of the human rights of older persons will not be built from scratch. Rather, we will build on the broad human rights and policy framework developed over the past decades by states, international organizations, academia, and civil society, especially through the regional and international human rights system. Within the United Nations, we have already achieved a number of important milestones. These include: in 1991, the United Nations Principles on the Rights of the Person, built around the principles of independence, participation, care, self-fulfillment, and dignity. In 1992, Proclamation of Aging, which marked a shift towards a human rights-based approach. In 2002, Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging, which remains the main global framework for aging policies. In 2006, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This provision also benefits many other persons with disabilities. Declaration in 2013, of the mandate of the independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, whose work has played a key role in advancing the protection of the rights of the older person, and the recommendation of the UN treaty bodies, together with the work of the former Open-Ended Working Group on Aging, which over more than 15 years identified important gaps in the international protection of the rights of the older person. At the regional level, a very important milestone was the 2015 Inter-American Convention protecting the human rights of the older person, the first legally binding international treaty dedicated exclusively of the older person. The convention recognized key principles such as autonomy, independence, equality, and non-discrimination, participation, accessibility, independent living, long-term care, protection from violence, access to justice, healthy care, and lifelong learning. It also established monitoring mechanisms and encouraged states to develop dedicated public policies. Brazil also has one of the world's most comprehensive legal frameworks the rights of the older person. In 1988, federal constitution laid the foundations for comprehensive protection by guaranteeing dignity, social security, health, social assistance, and the shared responsibility of family, society, and the state for protecting older person. This framework was strengthened by the 1993 Organic Law in Social Assistance, which established the continuous cash Benefits, the 1994 National Policy for Older Persons, and the 2003 Institute of the Older Person. The institute recognized older persons as right holders and has led to important advances including broader priority access to public services, stronger protection from violence, the expansion of the right to And better protection of the right in areas such as health, social assistance, transport, employment, education, culture, housing, and access to justice. In field of the health, in 2006, National Health Policy for the Persons Guides Brazilian Unified Health System, the SUS, in promoting active aging, preserving functional capacity, and ensure comprehensive care. In 2010, the creation of the National Fund for Older Persons strengthened the financial public policy and expansion of social participation. The fund allows taxpayers to direct part of their income tax to projects approved by the Rights Council, helping to decentralize resources and strengthening social oversight. More recently, in 2022, Our legislation officially replaced the term elderly with older person, reinforcing a human rights-based approach. The National Care Policy established by law in 2024 recognizes care as both a right and a shared responsibility among states, family, society, and market, ensuring the rights to provide care, receive care, and practice self-care. Furthermore, in the same year, we adopted the National Policy for Comprehensive Care for People with Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias. The legal framework has enabled the federal government to develop innovative policies, including establishing a general coordination for the rights of older persons in situations of vulnerability and multiple discrimination, aligned with Article 5 of the Inter-American Convention Protecting the Human Rights of the Older Person, as well as the Viva Mais Cidadania and Envelhecer nos Territórios programs. The Viva Mais Cidadania, which means living with full citizenship, promotes the rights of the older person in situations of vulnerability and multiple discrimination, with a particular focus on historically excluded groups, including Black, Indigenous, quilombola, Roma, LGBT+, persons in street situation, persons with disability, and other marginalized populations. The Envelhecendo Territórios, Aging in Territories program, implemented across all regions from Brazil since 2023, currently reaches 76 municipalities with investments of approximately $2.5 million. The program has trained around 600, 700 human rights agents, older persons, carried out more than 120,000 home visits and reached approximately 73,000 older persons, identified more than 32,000 potential rights violations, around 3,500 cases of violence threatening local protection networks. Another fundamental aspect in the meaningful participation of the older person, the design of public policy. The 60th National Conference on the Rights of the Older Person, held in 2025, mobilized more than 2,600 municipal, intermunicipal, independent conferences involving 2,960 6 Brazilian municipalities, culminating in the National Conference in Brasília, attended by 1,158 representatives, under the theme Multicultural Aging and Democracy: The Urgence of Equity, Rights, and Participation. The process resulted in adopting the 9th National Proposal, reaffirming that direct participation of the older persons strengthen democracy and enhance the development of public policies. Taken together, these developments demonstrate that a solid legal, institutional, and policy framework already exists at international, regional, and national levels, providing a strong foundation for the development of a future United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of the Older Person. The challenge before us is not to create new human rights, but to develop international instruments that clarifies and gives normative expression to how existing human rights apply to older persons, addressing protecting gaps, and ensure the effective promotion, protection, and fulfillment in light of the realities of aging worldwide.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much to Mr. Alexandre da Silva. I apologize, I did not properly introduce you. You have seen that Mr. Alexandre da Silva brought to us, to our discussion, more than 20 years of experience in the field of gerontology with a specific focus on the human rights of older persons. Thank you very much for your presentation. I now hand over to Mr. Svezdan Pirtosek, who assumed his role as Independent Expert on the Human Rights of Older Persons in May 2026. Sir, you have the floor.

Thank you. Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and dear colleagues, allow me to begin with a personal reflection. Around 2010, I was working as a neurologist, and every day I treated older patients with Parkinson's disease, with dementia, stroke, and other neurological disorders. We prescribed the best medicines available, organized rehabilitation, and often achieved remarkable clinical improvements. But not always. Some patients never recovered as we had hoped, not because medicine had failed them, but because something else had. Some were living in poverty. Some depended on exhausted family caregivers. Some were older women who had spent a lifetime caring for others and entered old age without adequate income or protection. Others were migrants who struggled to access services or even to understand the health system. I gradually realized that many of the greatest obstacles to healthy aging could not be solved by another prescription or another rehabilitation program. Medicine was necessary, but it was not sufficient. Only later did I understand that these were, in fact, human rights issues. That realization did not emerge overnight. It reflects a much longer journey in human thought, one that has brought us, all of us, to Geneva today. Across cultures and throughout history, societies have sought different ways to understand ageing and respond to the needs and contributions of older persons. While these experiences have varied, together they illustrate an evolving appreciation of both our shared humanity and our responsibility towards one another. Many societies have long recognized older persons as holders of knowledge, experience, and wisdom. Families and communities were often expected to care for them. Respect, however, frequently depended on social status, on perceived usefulness or family support. Protection was not generally understood as a matter of universal rights. Many religious and philosophical traditions reinforced moral duties of care towards older persons, alongside others facing vulnerability. Compassion and solidarity became enduring values. This represented an important advance in recognizing our shared humanity, but protection still depended largely on the goodwill and compassion and capacity of others. As society industrialized and social structures evolved, governments gradually assumed greater responsibility through pensions, social insurance, and other forms of social protection. The focus increasingly shifted towards public responsibility and welfare. The 20th century also brought remarkable advances in medicine, Longer lives created new challenges associated with chronic disease, disability, and long-term care. Medicine dramatically improved both life expectancy and quality of life. Yet older persons were often viewed primarily as patients, defined by frailty and dependency. Following the horrors of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 proclaimed that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Yet one group remained largely invisible. Older persons were protected indirectly, but rarely recognized explicitly within the international human rights framework. From the 1980s onward, important milestones gradually filled this space. The Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing in 1982. The United Nations Principles for Older Persons in 1991, introducing independence, participation, care, self-fulfilment and dignity. The International Year of Older Persons in 1999. The Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing in 2002, integrating ageing into development policies around the world. Each represented genuine progress. Each reflected important advances in how societies understood ageing and their responsibility towards older persons. And, importantly, each continues to offer something of lasting value. We still need respect. We still need families. We still need compassion. We still need social protection. We still need excellent medicine. But today we understand that none of these, by themselves, is enough. Today, we increasingly understand ageing through the lens of human rights. This perspective does not emerge in isolation. It builds upon decades of international human rights law, the experience of states, and the voices of older persons themselves. A human rights approach does not replace medicine or, or social policy. It gives them a normative foundation. It asks whether older persons enjoy equality Autonomy, participation, access to justice, freedom from violence, and freedom from discrimination simply because they are human beings. Yet too often, the rights of older persons remain invisible, fragmented, inconsistently protected, and undermined by ageism and normative gaps. This is precisely why the international community began this journey back in 2010. Over the past 15 years, States, United Nations mechanisms, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, older persons and many others have contributed an extraordinary body of analysis through the Open-Ended Working Group and now this Intergovernmental Working Group. Those submissions, discussions and experiences demonstrate both the strength of the existing framework and the areas where older persons continue to experience gaps in protection, visibility and implementation. It is also why the remarkable work of so many people presented and gathered here today, including my predecessor Claudia Mahler and my distinguished co-speaker Sylvia Perel-Levin, is beginning to bear fruit. We are not creating new human rights. We are seeking to ensure that older persons can enjoy the same universal human rights, with same clarity, visibility and effectiveness as everyone else. The task before this Working Group is therefore not to build from scratch, but to build upon the foundations already laid, to identify where gaps remain and to work together to close them. Perhaps that is the next chapter in this long history of humanity's understanding of aging. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. Pirtosek, for sharing with us your reflections stemming from 4 decades of experience of multidisciplinary clinical practice integrating medical, psychological, and social dimensions of aging.

Aging.

Looking forward to working with you in the elaboration of this new instrument. I will now hand over to our next panelist, Ms. Silvia Perel-Levin, who's a strong advocate for the human rights of older persons, representing the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, INPEA, who's also Vice Chair of the NGO Committee on Aging and a member of the steering group of GAROP. Ms. Perel Levin, why we are not building from scratch, please.

Thank you.

Distinguished Chair and Moderator, Excellencies, delegates, colleagues from national human rights institutions, civil society partners, and older persons whose rights and lives must remain at the center of our work. Not building from scratch. Captures both a reassurance and a responsibility. In developing a legally binding instrument on the human rights of older persons, we are indeed not starting from zero. But we should not merely restate existing standards, nor should existing law make us timid about naming the realities of older age. I suggest we hold together the 2 commitments: existing human rights must apply to older persons, equally, and where existing treaties are silent, fragmented or unclear in relation to older age, we must define new standards. Equality requires both application and innovation. But the foundation already exists. First, we should recognize the strength of what already exists. The Universal Human Rights framework applies to every person at every age. Older persons do not become less entitled to equality, autonomy, health, liberty, access to justice, work, social security, privacy, housing, education, participation, or freedom from violence and abuse because they have reached a particular age. We also have extensive practical knowledge. We know that ageism is a structural barrier affecting almost every facet of our lives. Older women, older persons with disabilities, older migrants, older persons living in poverty, older persons deprived of liberty, older persons in institutions, older LGBTQI persons, and older persons in humanitarian settings all face intersecting discrimination. So our starting point is not an empty page. It is a body of standards, evidence and lived experience. The question is how to bring that material together into a dedicated instrument that makes the rights of older persons specific, practical and enforceable. But existing standards are not enough.

Why?

Saying that older persons already have human rights cannot be the end of the discussion. In practice, as it was said, older age is often treated as an exception. Restrictions on liberty are justified as protection, exclusion from treatment as pragmatism, loss of decision-making power as care, poverty as retirement, isolation as inevitable. This is precisely what a new Convention must reject. Age is not a permissible reason to dilute human rights obligations. States may not lower standards on consent, healthcare, liberty, work, education, housing, justice or participation because of ageism or epistemic injustice, or because an older person is considered less capable, less productive or less worthy of investment. A legally binding instrument can consolidate standards clarify obligations, strengthen accountability, and shift the narrative from charity to rights, from protection alone to autonomy and participation, and from older persons as a homogeneous group to diverse individuals with equal rights. But not building from scratch means building with coherence, drawing on existing human rights while addressing the specific ways rights are experienced, restricted, or denied in older age. We therefore need the courage to create what is missing. Existing treaties do not name ageism. They do not set out a clear right to long-term care and support. They say little about digital exclusion, algorithmic discrimination, or the risks faced by older persons in emergencies— climate events, conflicts, and pandemics. These are not marginal issues. If the right to health does not address rehabilitation, palliative care, informed consent, age-based rationing, or discriminatory triage, older persons will remain unprotected. If the right to liberty does not address locked care facilities or coercive admission, freedom may still be denied in the name of safety. Defining new standards is how human rights law develops. The Convention on the Rights of the Child translated universal rights into the realities of childhood. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities clarified what equality, autonomy, accessibility and inclusion require in practice. A Convention on the Rights of Older Persons should do the same for older age. We should therefore Avoid a false dichotomy between existing rights and new standards. We need both. Existing rights provide the foundation. New standards provide the clarity and enforceability needed to make those rights real. So in drafting each article, we should ask: How has this right been denied or weakened in older age? And what must be specified to prevent that? Where existing law is incomplete, what new content is required to ensure equality in practice? If we answer those questions honestly, we will not pretend the international community has done nothing before, but we will also not pretend that general guarantees have been enough. On equality and non-discrimination, the Convention should explicitly name ageism and age discrimination including direct, indirect, structural, intersectional, and accumulative discrimination. It should reject blanket age limits and assumptions about capacity, dependency, or social value. On autonomy and legal capacity, we need clear standards for supported decision-making, advance planning, safeguards against coercion, and respect for will and preferences. Cognitive change must never be used as a shortcut to remove legal capacity. On care and support, older persons need a clear right to quality, affordable and accessible long-term care and support, including support to live independently in the community. On violence, abuse and neglect, the Convention should cover prevention, detection, reporting, investigation, remedies and support in all settings, including digital space. On technology, it should address digital exclusion, the right to opt in and out, accessible public services, algorithmic accountability, human review of automated decisions, and the arbitrary use of age as a proxy in systems affecting healthcare, insurance, credit, employment, or social protection. On emergencies, it should require age-inclusive planning and response, accessible information, continuity of care and support, and equal protection in crisis response. The Convention must also avoid treating older persons as a single category of vulnerability. Older persons are workers, leaders, carers, artists, migrants, indigenous persons, Persons with disabilities, women, men, and persons of diverse identities and experiences— some need care and support, some provide it. All have equal rights. This is why participation is essential. Older persons must engage in shaping the standards. In conclusion, older persons need the same human rights applied without ageism, excuses, or diminished expectations. To achieve that, the law must speak clearly, name the barriers older persons face, and create standards strong enough to be claimed, monitored, and enforced. Now, this Working Group can move from evidence to text. We are not building from scratch. We are building from the promise of universality. Our responsibility is to make that promise real in older age. This first session is an opportunity to move from evidence to text. Previous discussions, particularly proposed normative elements at the Open-Ended Working Group in New York, Human Rights Council resolutions and reports by OHCHR and the Independent Expert, have already identified many core issues. The regional instruments show us what works, and this Working Group can now translate that knowledge into a full treaty with principles, obligations, substantive rights, implementation, monitoring, and international cooperation. We should not allow the existence of human rights standards to become an argument for delay. They are the reason we can move forward. They provide the foundation. This Working Group must now build the structure. Let us build on what exists. fill what is missing. We respect the past, but we are making history. Let us ensure that the human rights of older persons are no longer dispersed, implicit, or overlooked, but visible, specific, enforceable, and lived in practice. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. And also thank you for transmitting your passion and knowledge. And this is why, as I was mentioning, The voices of older persons, NHRI, UN mechanisms, and civil society continue and have to continue to inform and support our work and this working group. I will now hand over to Miss Heidrun Molenhoff, the interim president of Age Platform Europe, the European network of nonprofit organizations of and for older persons, who's also board member of BAGSO, the German National Association of Senior Citizens Organization. Ms. Mollenhoff has also been appointed to serve in the Standing Working Group on Aging of UNECE as representative of civil society. What are your insights on why we are not building from scratch?

Please.

Thank you so much for inviting me to present here the voice of older persons. To justify my role, I see you just mentioned, my long-standing membership at BACSO, my many years of involvement with Age Platform Europe, my age, 85 years of lived experience with a wealth of insights, my research on quality of life of older people during my professional career, 10 years in which I represented the several organisations at the Open-Ended Working Group in New York, and finally my role as civil society delegate on the Bureau of the UNECE Standing Working Group on Aging. As this Working Group begins its substantive work, I first of all would like to welcome yesterday's and today's discussions on not building from scratch. As we start drafting the new legally binding instrument, I will try not to repeat what has been so obvious and mentioned so often during very excellent contributions from delegates, from member states, from human rights organizations, from NGOs. We heard many things which I think we can agree upon. But let me add a few thoughts about what all this means for older persons. I think the first is— what we agree upon is that we build on existing standards, but we have to strengthen them. Indeed, we are not starting from zero. We are building on decades of international and regional human rights developments. In Europe, for instance, we have seen important normative developments that can inform this process. The Council of Europe was the first intergovernmental organisation to recognise the rights of older persons in a legally binding treaty, namely the European Social Charter. The European Union recognized the rights of older persons in Article 25 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and has developed one of the strongest legal frameworks on equality and non-discrimination. And the 2014 Council of Europe recommendation introduced an innovative rights-based understanding of older persons that is reflected in many submissions to the Chair's call for input. These European, as well as other international and regional developments, show that we have a strong foundation. The new Convention must preserve these existing protections Never weaken them, but also provide stronger, clearer, and more coherent standards, as you said. So second, the convention can strengthen regional protection. International and regional human rights systems have always evolved together. The new convention should therefore not only build on regional standards where they. Exist, it should also help strengthen them. It can inspire legislative reform, inform regional jurisprudence, and encourage the development of stronger and more coherent regional standards where they are still lacking. Third, let's use the evidence we already have. The Human Rights Council has entrusted this Working Group with elaborating a legally binding instrument. The analytical phase has already been completed. Over 15 years, the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing, together with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the independent experts, and many of the stakeholders involved in this process, have mapped existing standards, documented protection gaps, and identified areas where normative development is needed. This represents an extraordinary body of work. We should use its evidence to inform the drafting process. Repeating that exercise would duplicate mandates and delay negotiations. Fourth, existing standards leave important gaps, and this is most importantly. Many existing standards were never designed with older persons and today's realities in mind. Some contain language that no longer reflects a contemporary human rights-based approach to ageing. Others say very little about the situation older persons face during the 30 to, in some cases, 40 years of living. None of the existing treaties explicitly prohibits age discrimination. Most were developed before the rapid change of the structure of the population. The digital transformation, the widespread use of artificial intelligence, and the climate change with its far-reaching consequences became defining features of our societies. Older adults around the world are particularly vulnerable to these new challenges. The declining importance of the traditional family due to the demographic change, is leading to an increasing number of older persons living alone, who have no support from family members, and therefore increasingly need support from formal services, and who are at risk of loneliness. Older persons often lack the necessary resources to access and use new technological devices and services. As a result, they are denied the right to participate in many areas of life. Many of them are happy to have friends, colleagues, or grandchildren who help them to navigate in this new digitalized world. But as nice and important this support is, it means a loss of autonomy. You can no longer decide yourself what you and how you get the services you need, how you can get access to public information if everything is only provided in a digitalized form. And in case you need help, this means loss of autonomy. The use of artificial intelligence in decision-making processes can lead to discrimination against older persons based on age-related bias. You suddenly are surprised That the cost for your car insurance doubles just because you changed from 74 to 75, maybe, or from 80 to 81. And the third aspect, during climate-related emergencies or armed conflicts, Older adults are at particular risk because their physical conditions and needs are not adequately taken into account. What does your right to autonomy, to independent living mean when you are the last older women in a small village, everything around you has been destroyed, Maybe in Ukraine, maybe in Gaza. What is your autonomy for independent living then, when you don't want to leave your home, your garden, your animals? So these are the situations many older persons face. And the new instrument, the new legally binding instrument, has to save the rights and protect the rights also of those older persons. The Convention offers an opportunity not to create new human rights, as we heard several times, but to ensure that universal human rights remain real and meaningful in these new contexts, also for older people. We also heard several times that we need ambition and normative imagination. So, I very briefly will mention this again.

We—

this Working Group has the unique opportunity and responsibility to shape the future of international human rights law by ensuring that universal human rights can be fully and equally enjoyed in older age. The Convention should clarify what this means in practice and strengthen protection where gaps have been identified. It could also help to address the multiple disadvantages that occur at the intersections of different forms of inequality more efficiently. If we build on existing standards while developing them further, we can create a coherent, relevant, and genuinely transformative convention. And as a last aspect, let me speak briefly about experiences I made as the delegate to the UNECE Standing Working Group on Aging. We heard also from Italy today and from the UNECE representative about the ongoing work about the Madrid International Plan of Action and the update of the regional implementation strategy. So let me share my experiences with this. In this working group, government representatives and delegates from academia and civil society engage in an ongoing productive dialogue on current issues related to the implementation of the goals agreed upon in the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and develop common positions together. And I have to mention here that this International Plan of Action on Ageing is a global approach. It is not just for the UNECE. It is for all regions. Of the world. It's agreed as a common goal to improve the situation of older persons worldwide. But what sets this group at the UNECE apart is the formal inclusion of civil society in the bureau of the Standing Working Group. This institutionalized role ensures that civil society is not just part of the meetings of the Standing Working Group, but that it is actively shaping decisions. So, none of all these efforts are possible without older persons. The meaningful participation of older persons must remain central throughout this process. Not only because we understand where existing standards succeed or fail, but because we are partners in designing better solutions, and because we will not shy away from addressing the difficult questions. The Convention should be drafted with us, older persons, not simply for us. Mr. Chair, Mr. Moderator, we have decades of international and regional experience. We have more than 15 years of evidence. We have a clear mandate. The task before us is no longer to demonstrate the need for a Convention. Rather, it is to draft an ambitious Convention Thank you.

Thank you very much also for sharing your insights and also to let everyone understand how important is the full, meaningful, and effective participation of older persons and their representative organizations, including through consultation, co-design, and in co-decision mechanisms. I now hand over the floor to the chairperson to lead the interactive discussion. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I thank you, Mr. Moderator, and all distinguished panelists for their valuable contributions, and I will now open the floor to member states for interactive discussions. And I see Austria. Austria has the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I have a question for the panel, and I would like to know how the intersessional work in New York built ground for this Working Group also taking into account the existing human rights framework.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Austria. Türkiye has the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I also have a question regarding the structure of the drafting of legally binding instrument. Is there What are the plans clearly, or is it a subject to discuss on Friday?

Thank you, Türkiye. I think that that's a question more to the Chair than to the panelists. We are going to discuss the timeline on Friday during the morning session. Mexico has the floor.

Gracias.

Thank you, Chair Rapporteur. We would like to thank the various panelists for their presentations. Mexico agrees that we're not starting from scratch. The negotiation of a legally binding instrument on the rights of older persons should be built based upon international norms and standards, based on the principle of progressive progressivity and non-regression of human rights. In that regards, there's a strong foundation of hard and soft law instrument, different processes and experiences that we can draw from to build. The International Madrid Action Plan on Aging was a landmark as it went from a handout paradigm to one that is rights, participation, and fairness-based. That document was the very first international call to rethink aging as a public and human rights issue. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we have a regional architecture that is a model worldwide. We highlight, for example, the Brasilia Declaration, the San José Charter, the Asunción Declaration, even the Santiago Declaration in 2022, all of which ask us to build inclusive societies with the full participation of older persons. Further, in the region, we have a treaty in the area, the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons from 2015, which foresees substantive rights and guiding principles that this instrument should be mindful of: autonomy, dignity, participation, solidarity, Protection and inclusion are among them. Out of these regional instruments, we have harvested key substantive concepts such as the recognition of care as a right in and of itself and how important it is to have support systems, the protection of rights with a cross-cutting approach, bearing in mind especially older women, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities, a focus on the political participation and decision-making, and an explicit rejection of any type of structural ageism. These standards are not just aspirations. They force us to think of aging as a rights-based issue, not something of charity. These standards have been recognized additionally in public legislations and policies of many countries in the region, as well as in regional case law. In addition to the substantive dimension, if we look at it procedurally, We also recognize that there are many good procedural practices where the significant participation of older persons has been granted. Let us nourish ourselves from these successful experiences so as to guarantee the principle of participation in this process. Thank you.

I would like to thank the delegation of Mexico for their valuable contributions.

To the Philippines,

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Thank you as well to our speakers for their powerful presentations. The Philippines is carefully listening and considering your very valuable insights. The legally binding instrument we are crafting is informed by decades of discussions, not only in the halls of the UN but also in parliaments, the academy, and among CSOs and advocacy groups. In 1948, Madame Eva Perón of Argentina submitted a draft Declaration of Old Age Rights for the consideration of the GA. Member States were not ready for it then. We recall this history to remind us that this current process has had a long trajectory, that older persons have waited far too long. We cannot let another generation of older persons pass without recognizing their specific rights in a legally binding instrument. The HRC is the unique and the most appropriate arena to bring the long journey to its intended conclusion. The Philippines does not wish to rehash the arguments that have divided delegations in New York and in other forums. We wish to take common understanding and lessons from related processes and utilize them to help the Geneva Process achieve the comprehensiveness and level of ambition that guarantees that all persons age with rights. The Madrid Plan of Action on Aging, while falling short in ensuring the human rights of older persons, has shaped the multilateral agenda for more than 2 decades. The follow-up to the Second World Assembly on Aging helped bring issues such as ageism into the intergovernmental space. Discussions in the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging looked at the data and identified areas where violations of older persons' rights are common, And its Decisions 13/1 and 14/1 paved the way for the Geneva Process. The Working Group should also draw from existing human rights conventions, including regional instruments. We are not building from scratch. There is much to learn from the earlier processes and mechanisms, including those that are development-based. But it is important to stress that our current priority is to advance a human rights process and produce a human rights instrument with the full and meaningful participation of older persons. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the delegation of the Philippines and now give the floor to the distinguished delegation of Ecuador.

Thank you very much, Chair. My delegation would like to thank the panelists for their contributions, especially the delegate from Portugal and the Secretary from Brazil, for sharing the main ideas of the process that concluded in New York, as well as to the independent expert, Peter Sack, for reminding us of the various programmatic frameworks, plans of action, principles and strategies, and standards in the area of aging. These statements, as well as those made by other panelists, have clearly highlighted yet again that drafting an internationally legally binding instrument cannot begin from scratch. We must use the 40 years of collective thoughts in New York, but also, and more broadly, the greater regulatory pragmatic development that has been achieved at the universal, regional, and national levels as well. This has allowed us to identify protection gaps for older persons. Some have talked about inequality, discrimination, lack of autonomy, health, guarantees of long-term care. As well as the need for protection from violence, among other aspects, and this is a valuable guide for this Working Group. Likewise, we must bear in mind the recommendations coming from the previous Independent Expert and thematic reports, for example, on ageism and violence, as well as the contributions coming from future reports and recommendations to the new mandate holder. Also, it's important to build upon the gains made by other fora, in the universal system, such as the statements of the treaty bodies. General Comment 6 of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, for example, General Recommendation 27 of the CEDAW Committee, which among others include specific standards of the rights of older persons. Regionally, and this has been said already, the Inter-American Convention, and Ecuador is a party to it, reiterates that the process should not begin from nothing. Lastly, and for the sake of transparency, inclusivity, and coherence mentioned by some of the panelists, which must characterize this process, my delegation believes that it is essential to have the participation and full involvement of the human— national human rights institutions that participated this morning, as well as civil society organizations that represent older persons. And this in line with the principle that many mentioned this morning: nothing can be done about older persons without older persons. Let's remind ourselves that this involvement should not end when we conclude drafting the future instrument, but also its future implementation, monitoring, and assessment. Thank you.

Thank you to the delegation of Ecuador. Now I'd like to recognize the distinguished delegation of Chile.

Thank you very much, Chair, and I would like to thank as well all panelists. As the title of this panel hints at, we're not starting from scratch. Quite the opposite, there is already great normative political development that Chile believes is important for this negotiation. Well, first, we believe that the future instrument must expressly recognize the whole set of standards that have been developed over the past decade, including the United Nations Principles for Older Persons from 1991, the Statement on Aging of 1992, the San José Charter on the Rights of Older Persons from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the Statements of Montevideo of 2017 and of Santiago. Secondly, Chile believes that it is indispensable to recognize the progress that has already been made in the regional level. Now we have 2 binding treaties that are specifically devoted to the protection of the rights of older persons at the regional level: the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, which the delegation of Mexico already referred to, as well as the Protocol to the African Charter of Human Rights and Peoples on the Rights of Older Persons. In that regard, Chile believes that regulatory solutions and good practices, included in these regional instruments can be of significant use to the process we're launching today. Lastly, we believe that it is essential that any future treaty reflects a paradigm shift vis-à-vis aging, and that was a lot of what we heard in presentations today. Older persons should not be seen exclusively as people needing protection and assistance, but rather as people that as they age continue continuing to fully enjoy their rights and making significant contributions, present ones and potential ones, to the well-being of their families, communities, and societies. Recognizing their autonomy, independence, and participation must be one of the pillars of the new instrument. Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to thank the valuable contribution of the delegation of Chile, and now I would like to recognize the delegation of Colombia.

Rights law already recognizes general principles and rights such as equality, non-discrimination, and dignity, which ought to be reaffirmed expressly for older persons through clauses that recognize them as full mandate holders and right holders, applying the principles of progressiveness and non-regression, which we mentioned already. Additionally, as we said yesterday, the United Nations Principles for Older Persons as well as the developments made in the regional systems, provide us a conceptual framework that could be useful as a substantive backbone for the future instrument, as it already includes definitions and standards that can be used as a reference for drafting text that does not yet exist in the universal level. Regarding topics such as the concept of active aging and healthy aging, or the differentiated approach, or the one of shared responsibility, The same happens with the recognition of care, long-term care, as an autonomous human right, which was recently recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Consultative Opinion 31 of last year. Now, starting from not scratch doesn't mean that we're simply going to copy the current state of international law. We believe that the instrument should clearly identify the gaps as a way to overcome the regulatory fragmentation that still exists at the international level. This area. Specifically, we must overcome the limited reach of standards such as ILO Agreement 102 and the International Covenant on Civil, Cultural, and Political Rights, as well as to have minimum standards for care centers for older persons providing dignified infrastructure, comprehensive healthcare, trained staff, inspection mechanisms, and prevention of ill-treatment. It would also be important for the instrument to expressly prohibit any ageism as a type of structural discrimination, improving the guarantees of access to justice by providing procedural accommodation that are age-based, and that would recognize inclusion and digital literacy as a right, thereby avoiding that the technological gap deepens the exclusion of older persons. And so the instrument would allow us to have a consistent framework that would articulate existing standards with the regulatory responses that we're looking Lastly, and repeating what the delegation of Ecuador has already said, and as was clearly put this morning, nothing about older persons can be decided without older persons. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Is it working?

Yeah.

For giving me the floor, and thank you to the panelists for this inspiring discussion. Inspiring debate. I was reassured in my notion that we're not building from scratch, that the hard work done by the Open-Ended Working Group will be reflected here. The Open-Ended Working Group has identified the areas of concern where the international norms and standards of the human rights and also ILO standards are there but not specific enough, elaborated enough, or not applied enough to make them a reality for older persons. And I think now it's the time where we should get down to drafting. Having listened to the debate this morning and yesterday, I think there's a big consensus in this room on substance, which we should cover and we could cover. So, if we take this all in, it's time to get the work done and have the human rights framework as a background, have the MIPA framework as a background, take the ILO on board, make use of the experience done by the WHO and the Decade of Healthy Ageing. And I think, look into regional instruments and regional traditions. And I'd really like to thank Heidrun also for pointing out the big step forward the European Union has made with the anti- discrimination legislation, especially in abolishing more or less age discrimination in the labor sphere. That was a big step forward taken up by national courts and national legislation, and we should build on that and make it a reality.

Thank you.

I would like to thank the delegation of Germany and now give the floor to the distinguished delegation of Uruguay.

Thank you very much, Chair Rapporteur. We would like to thank the panelists for their contributions. And as my delegation has already said, the future instrument is an important opportunity to contribute to overcoming gaps in the universal level and to improve the legal protection and the human rights of older persons through clear and more efficient Its design must combine regulatory ambition, conceptual clarity, and practical feasibility so as to promote an effective implementation by States. Using our experience as a State Party to the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, Uruguay believes that it is important— I apologize, I will pick up later on.

Sure.

you can let us know and then we will give you the floor again. Gulf Cooperation Council has the floor.

Thank you, Chair. I deliver this statement on behalf of the GCC countries. The GCC countries underscore that the development of international instruments on the human rights of all of older persons should be based on objective reading of current standards and experiences. What is required is to build on the gains and identify the loopholes that should be developed so that to further protect human rights of older persons while respecting the diversity of legal, social, and cultural systems of various countries. The GCC experience in this field is based on our firm belief that older persons are not just recipients of care, but rather they are right holders and a pillar of the family, society, and intergenerational solidarity. On this basis, GCC countries underscore the need to move away from a model based on care and only care to a human rights integrated approach that combines protection, care, empowerment, and effective participation. President, GCC countries attaches special importance to data and facts-based policies. In this light, working towards establishing regional measuring tools, measuring tools like Gulf Indices for older persons' quality of life is an important practice that we can build on because it helps identifying needs and measuring the quality of services. It allows also evaluating the efficacy of programs and policies of older persons. Lastly, the GCC countries consider that the future instrument should be should encourage countries to develop their national systems in a practical, measurable manner. This instrument should also clearly indicate the need to measure progress through comparable indices that can be evaluated. It should not be based on launching general commitments that are difficult to implement in terms of tangible effect and impact. Thank you, President.

I thank the delegation of the GCC and I now give the floor to the distinguished delegation of Slovenia.

Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity. And at first I would really like to thank the representatives of Brazil and Portugal as well as Independent expert Pirtosek, the both representatives of older persons for their insight at the beginning of today's debate. You have really shown very, very much how the how there the work has already been done. So we are definitely not starting from from scratch, and I would like to. put forward a couple of messages where we see that the relevant work has already been done. And firstly and foremostly, as it has already been mentioned several times also in today's discussion, we believe that this is the right moment to build on the work of the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging. And in the 10 years of its tenure, it really made a lot of substantive discussions. It showed, also with the intersectoral work that the Portuguese colleague was representing, it already shows that there is an intergovernmental, let's say, convergence of views where the possible gaps in the protection of the human rights of older persons lie and how we can best address them. And it was and it still is our sincere conviction that the mentioned recommendations must be the basis for the work also in this working group. And this is a basis for our consensus, hopefully. Secondly, we also must pay considerable attention to the findings and recommendations of the reports of the independent expert on the rights of older persons. The work done by the previous mandate holders and the present mandate holder can offer us very valuable guidance. Give us important inputs for our work and deliberations. And thirdly, we believe that in this Working Group we also have to consider the developments and regional legal frameworks on the rights of older persons, including, for example, the revised European Social Charter, Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons, African Union Protocol on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa, as well as other instruments from other organizations, for instance, ILO instruments, Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging, other relevant instruments also, for instance, in the World Health Organization. And fifthly, we also believe that the LBI should follow the structure of other core human rights treaties, as it has been shown also through our discussions that that those gaps and the need for the protection mechanisms need, let's say, some clarity. They need to be brought together. So the new LBI should also aim to ensure clarity, which will result in accessibility, prevention of misinterpretation, consistency, and certainty. And to this end, we support that the new LBI is framed broadly in order to encompass the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms, but it should also remain flexible enough to respond to evolving aging contexts, which include technological, scientific, and other relevant progress in development. And of course, you know our position. We firmly believe that this process must be inclusive, has to consider— our process should and must consider the knowledge contributions and skills of older persons, including through their participation, and I'm very happy to see 2 representatives today also on the panel. And of course, we also call for meaningful engagement of other stakeholders.

Thanks.

I would like to thank the delegation of Slovenia for their comments.

Peace of Allah be upon you. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, we express our thanks for the panelists for their presentations, and we express our commitment to reinforcing human rights and protecting human dignity in all stages of life on the basis of Sharia and our social values, which calls for family solidarity, intergenerational solidarity, and respecting the elderly. Our Vision 2030 aim is to achieve human development and social development, and we stress that the upcoming LBI should be based on international law and should be based on the CRPD, particularly its provisions on inalienable dignity, personal autonomy, choice, freedom of choice, access and independent living, and participation in society. It should be based also on the Convention on Elimination of Violence and Discrimination Against Women, which might affect elderly women, and in line with 2030 Agenda. The LBI should not leave anyone behind. It should also have plans and programs addressing the older persons dealing with discrimination, inequality, and poverty. Qatar adopts an approach of multidimensional in order to protect the right of older persons based on integration between the Constitution and the institutions. Constitutionally, rights of older persons are based on valid grounds. The Constitution of 2004 stressed that the state should organize all the means to support the family and preserve aging within the family in order to protect older persons and ensure their role in the family and in The strategy of Social Development Ministry 2030-2025 is a national framework which aims to move away from traditional care to empowerment and social participation and autonomy. The ministry launches programs and empowerment initiatives in order to digitally integrate integrate older persons and persons with disability by having training programs and raising awareness together with stakeholders. The aim is to ensure their access to digital services and build their capacities to safely use technology. Thank you, President.

I thank the distinguished representative of Qatar, and I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Malaysia.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair Rapporteur. We appreciate the perspectives shared by the respective panelists and experts. We also welcome the timely reminder that in elaborating this instrument, we are not building from scratch. The establishment of this Working Group represents an important opportunity to strengthen the international protection of older persons. Our work should remain guided by a clear objective, ensuring that every person can age with dignity, autonomy, and security, and participate fully in family, community, and public life. The international community has already developed an important body of relevant standards, as mentioned by the panelists and other delegations. We should also draw upon the extensive discussions and submissions generated through the former Open-Ended Working Group on Aging, the work of the Independent Expert, and relevant regional experiences. These foundations affirm that older persons already enjoy all human rights. The added value of a new instrument should therefore be to clarify how those rights apply in older age, close identifiable protection gaps, and strengthen coherence, visibility, and accountability. At the same time, existing standards should not simply be reproduced without adaptation. Older persons are not a homogeneous group and the instrument must respond to different national contexts, legal systems, levels of development and the diverse experiences of older persons. Malaysia also underlines the important roles of families and communities in supporting older persons. Such shared responsibility should complement and not diminish the primary obligations of States. We join the call by the panelists and other delegations for us to build upon what already exists, address the remaining gaps, and develop provisions that can be implemented meaningfully and enjoy broad support. I thank you, Mr. Vice Chair Patu.

I would like to thank the delegation of Malaysia and now recognize the distinguished delegation of Cabo Verde.

Thank you, sir.

I also wanted to echo those who spoke before me in congratulating and thanking the panelists for their great presentations. I don't really have a written-out speech, but I did want to take a moment, make the best of this opportunity, And to say that Cabo Verde believes that the panelists' approach is an important one, and that is not to start from scratch, but instead to leverage best practices and existing practices at the international, regional, and national levels in the area of human rights, including Those of older persons. I do have a question though, and that is how could the Working Group make the best of that existing corpus, including regional, European, African instruments, those of the Americas and Asia? How can we use them best to draft an internationally legally binding instrument on the rights of older persons? Thank you.

Distinguished representative of Cabo Verde, and I now give the floor to Greece.

Mr. Chairman, and many thanks to the panelists for sharing with us their very insightful presentations and their rich experience, and remind us that a great deal of evidence has been accumulated over the years, and now we need it to translate So I would like to raise three follow-up questions. The first one is related to the absence at the universal level of an express prohibition of age discrimination, which we find only in the CRPD, which is compounded by the fact that no instrument to date names binding instruments to date names ageism as such. So how would an express provision on non-discrimination and its intersection with other prohibited grounds of discrimination would advance the human rights framework. My second question, having heard very interesting information regarding the situation in Brazil, I would like to hear panelists' views on how a legally binding instrument could ensure a whole-of-government approach, taking into account the that on issues related to the rights of other persons, practically the whole of the administration is somehow involved one way or another. So there is a need of coordination between different government departments, and we think that the LBI could contribute to this effect. And my third and last question is related to the second one and concerns monitoring. Bearing in mind precisely this whole-of-government approach, to what extent the establishment by the LBI alongside the international mechanism of domestic procedures like the ones that we find in the CRPD— I mean, focal points, coordination bodies, and of course independent oversight— so how could this domestic system ensure effective implementation at the domestic level. Thank you very much.

I thank the distinguished delegation of Greece for his questions. And now, if there is no other request for the floor from member states, I will turn on to give the floor to the distinguished representatives of national human rights institutions, starting by National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your valuable presentation and inputs.

I'm honored to deliver this statement on behalf of National Human Rights Commission of Korea. As this Intergovernmental Working Group begins its substantive work on the human rights of older persons, it's important to recognize that the call for legally binding instruments on the human rights of older persons is not emerge overnight. It is the result of more than 14 years of extensive discussion under the UEGA, informed by UN human rights mechanisms, NHRI, civil society, and most importantly, older persons themselves. By building upon this accumulated knowledge and experience, we can move our discussion forward more efficiently and meaningfully, rather than revisiting issues that have already been carefully examined. As a chair of the Gandhi Working Group on Aging, the NHRC-K has actively contributed to the international efforts since the Uwega process. In 2022, we organized an international conference to develop a draft convention on the human rights of older persons, drawing upon the perspective of governments, NHRI experts, civil society, and older persons themselves. The draft addresses the issue insufficiently protect Under the existing international human rights law, including intersectional discrimination, autonomy and dignity, and care based on principle of free, prior, and informed consent. This discussion also resonates with our domestic experience. The Republic of Korea continues to face some of the highest rates of old-age poverty and suicide among OECD countries. Ageism, social isolation, abuse and discrimination, together with the loss of income and social roles following withdrawal from economic activity continue to undermine the dignity and human rights of many older persons. In response, the Framework Act on Human Rights of Older Persons is under discussion in National Assembly. These realities are by no means unique to Republic of Korea. Across the old region, older persons continue to experience similar patterns of human rights violation. And years of international discussion have demonstrated that the existing human— international human rights framework remains insufficient to fully protect and promote their rights. The NHRC-K therefore hopes that this Intergovernmental Working Group will build upon the extensive body of knowledge and expertise already accumulated and advance the development of a legally binding instrument that effectively guarantees the human rights of all the In this process, we stand ready to share our experience and expertise and continue working closely with the Working Group. Thank you.

I would like to thank the Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea, and I have been informed that Uruguay is back in the room and now they can resume their statement. Uruguay, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair Rapporteur, and thank you very much for giving us the floor again. I will resume our statement from where we left off. Using our experience as State Party to the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, Uruguay believes that it is relevant to highlight the progress that has been made at the Inter-American level. That convention was a landmark as it recognized that older persons are full right holders and it brought about a paradigm shift regarding old age and aging. The experience in our region shows that it is possible to address demographic aging using a human rights-based approach and placing dignity, autonomy, equality, and non-discrimination at the very core of public policies. Among the standards, We have the right to equality and non-discrimination on the grounds of age, the right to autonomy, independence, and decision-making, access to justice on equal footing, the right to health, and that includes long-term care and palliative care, the right to live a life free from violence, abuse, neglect, as well as the participation in community, social, cultural, cultural and political integration. All of this progress complements current international frameworks, including the Universal Human Rights Instruments, the United Nations Principles for Older Persons, the International Madrid Action Plan on Aging, the Decade of Healthy Aging, and the 2030 Agenda. To conclude, Uruguay believes that the Inter-American experience provides valuable teachings to the current process. To have a specific instrument improves the protection of rights, brings greater regulatory clarity, and promotes more inclusive public policies aimed at ensuring that every older person can live with dignity, autonomy, equality, and full participation in society. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished delegation of Uruguay, and now I give the floor to the Commissioner for Human Rights

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to drive attention of all stakeholders to the agreed language and existing substantive resolutions on the human rights of older persons, including the one addressing ageism. In this regard, Human Rights Council Resolution 48/3, adopted in 2021, provides an important foundation which should be reflected in the new LBP. Thank you, Chair. The resolution recognizes that ageism is a widespread and prejudicial attitude that often serves as the source, justification, and driving force behind discrimination against older persons. It also acknowledges that ageism can reinforce other forms of discrimination and negatively affect older persons' participation in all aspects of society. This is not merely a question of social policy. It's a human rights issue. The resolution clearly calls upon States to combat ageism and prohibit all forms of discrimination against older persons and to promote the full realization of their rights in areas such as employment, social protection, housing, education and training, healthcare, long-term care, and access to technology. Importantly, agreed language already recognizes that ageism can take many forms. It may be explicit or implicit and may manifest through stereotypes, prejudice, discriminatory practices, or even hate speech based simply on a person's age or the perception that they are old. The resolution also highlights the importance of inclusive and age-friendly communities and of policies and services that support the dignity, autonomy, and independence of older persons. As we move forward, we believe it is essential to build on these and other agreed principles. It ensures consistency, strengthens accountability, and keeps the voices and experiences of older persons at the center of our work. Thank you so much.

I thank the Commissioner for Human Rights from Poland, and I give now the floor to the National Human Rights Commission from Thailand.

Chair, on behalf of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, or NHRCT, I am honored to join this discussion. Its theme speaks for itself. We are not building from scratch. Through the work of the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging, the international community has clearly identified the protection gaps faced by older persons, and we have reached a common understanding of the challenges, including age discrimination, violence and abuse, autonomy, long-term care, and social The national human rights institutions have made substantive contributions throughout the process, including through country joint statements, which are endorsed by the NHRC. We therefore believe that the time has come to translate this shared understanding into a legally binding instrument. Thailand has now an aged society, with more than one in five people aged. 60 years and over. Existing legal frameworks, however, are not enough to fully protect their rights. We therefore strongly support the elaboration of this convention. Through our Human Rights Assemblies held in 2024 and 2025, we facilitated dialogue among government agencies, civil society, academia, and communities which identify 3 priorities: recognizing older persons as rights holders, strengthening income security, and advancing the right to age in place. 3 recommendations have been drawn from these assemblies. First, the Convention should firmly embrace a human rights-based approach. Older persons are rights holders entitled to make decisions about their own lives. Care, and place of residence. Respect for autonomy should be reflected throughout the Convention. Second, income security should be recognized as a human right. Adequate income is essential for dignity, independence, and meaningful participation in society. We encourage the Working Group to give this right clear recognition in the Convention. Third, the Convention should recognize the right to age in place, enabling older persons to remain in their homes and communities with access to affordable housing, community-based health and social services, and long-term care. Chair and colleagues, the legitimacy of this Convention will depend not only on the content but also on and inclusive drafting process. All the persons should participate meaningfully throughout the negotiations, and national human rights institutions should continue to contribute through their independent expertise and monitoring. The NHRC stands ready to support this process, and once the Convention is adopted, to serve as an independent national mechanism to monitor its implementation and promote the rights of older persons. I thank you.

I thank the representative of the National Human Rights Commission from Thailand, and I now give the floor to the National Center for Human Rights in Jordan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Allow me first and foremost to provide some information based on the daily experiences we have at a national level with regard to the human rights-based approach regarding older persons. During this meeting, we are all striving to move towards a legally binding instrument to protect the rights of older persons while drawing inspiration from other instruments relating to other vulnerable categories of persons. And this is an issue which is a legal one in order to guarantee the right to access care. The aim is to draft a clear, frank, transparent text to ensure accountability for— with regard to young people towards their elders and their parents because in principle they are the ones entrusted with providing care for them. The aim is also to provide a framework to establish specialized care centers to take in older persons and provide them with care by geriatric specialists. And this would be in addition to existing infrastructures. The idea would be to provide for an improvement these services and indeed an optimization. The idea is also to better coordinate healthcare services in order to provide for optimized coordination including with the persons concerned, that is to say older persons, by including— by providing them the opportunities to continue their studies through lifelong learning or to provide volunteer The idea is to create a national action plan for older persons, and this would include awareness raising, training, specialization, whilst allowing for a participatory approach leading to better decision-making on the basis of proper information, which would also allow the private sector to participate in this. The aim is also to provide for better financial resources, to increase funding, and in particular within the government budgets in order to allow for better margins for the optimization of services provided for older persons. The idea is also to create clubs and leisure activities for older persons, to rehabilitate care centers to ensure that these infrastructures can properly take in older persons and allow them to engage in recreational activities and sports in order to ensure that they are mentally and psychologically flourishing as well. Funding must be provided to private institutions as well through incentives and bonuses in order to allow for better care to be provided. We are aiming for specialized training programs to protect older persons against risks that they might be be exposed to in terms of violence. We aim to increase accountability and responsibility for their socioeconomic, cultural, civic rights and to strengthen the role of society in this context. We also need to have a disaggregated database by taking into consideration a gendered approach, taking into consideration disability, the vulnerability in terms of economic and social factors, as well as other elements in order to make sure that we can properly target the support provided on the basis of these data and to determine what type of support is needed for each individual. We would like to see temporary care programs established as well for those who need support or who need shelter or accommodation facilities to host them. We also need funding for such infrastructures and contributions to those centers from AT. Years to 70 in order to ensure also that there are financial agreements in place for such bodies. There should be conditions established to allow for unannounced visits to these centers on the ground to ensure better care and allow for older persons to continue participating in social life so that we can better benefit from their expertise and experience. Thank you.

I thank the representative of the National Center for Human Rights in Jordan, and I remind delegations that the time limit for interventions is 3 minutes. I now give the floor to Amnesty International.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, panelists. Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity to reflect on existing international and regional standards as they pertain to the human rights of older persons and to highlight gaps where existing standards fall short. Older persons are included in general protections of core human rights treaties. Many human rights treaties prohibit discrimination on certain grounds, often including catch-all phrases such as other status. While older people are technically encompassed within such phrases, the lack of explicit reference to age discrimination has meant that rights in older age are, in fact, not widely recognized or reported on. Data regarding older persons' human rights is often not collected at all. Therefore, it is critical for us to emphasize that a legally binding instrument would not simply reiterate existing human rights. Rather, given the systematic neglect of older persons' rights, the instrument would serve to reinforce existing obligations and ensure that they are fully applied to older persons. It would also create standards for states to combat age discrimination at the national level, including reviews of existing policies and legislation, and ensure more comprehensive data collection regarding older persons. Without a legally binding instrument, no such reviews are likely to occur at a scale needed to meaningfully protect older persons. A legally binding instrument on the rights of older persons can and must be informed by existing treaty obligations. The new instrument must ensure strong complementarity with existing mechanisms, particularly treaty bodies whose mandates clearly address issues relevant to older people, including the CRPD Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the CAT, the SBT, the HRC, and the CEDAW Committee. Article 38 of the CRPD, which calls on the CRPD Committee to collaborate with other UN bodies so as to ensure consistency in reporting, and the avoidance of duplication could serve as a model for such complementarity. In addition to clarifying existing human rights obligations, the legally binding instrument must elaborate rights that are inadequately addressed in existing law in situations that specifically or disproportionately impact older persons. For example, older persons face unique forms of discrimination in healthcare, particularly during health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Their right to be free from violence, abuse, and neglect is inadequately addressed at the national level. And older people may be unable to access their rights due to digital exclusion. These are but a few of the many gaps that a legally binding instrument could serve to address. In conclusion, a legally binding instrument on the rights of older persons must be complementary and avoid duplication with existing instruments using existing models of complementarity as set out in the CRPD and elsewhere. It must also be innovative and address situations that impact older persons but which are newly emerging or inadequately addressed in international law. Thank you.

I thank the representative of Amnesty International, and I give now the floor to the International Federation on Ageing.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panel for your contribution. I am from the— a director on the International Federation on Ageing and co-chair of the Human Rights as We Age Network with the Australian Discrimination Commissioner. The future Convention should be firmly anchored in the existing international human rights framework. The Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the core international human rights treaties, and the rich jurisdiction and practice developed by treaty bodies, special procedures, and other United Nations mechanisms already provide a strong legal normative foundation as many have already stated. Our task is to build upon that foundation, not to duplicate it. Equally important, we are not starting from an empty page. The work of the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing, the independent expert, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, national human rights institutions, academia, civil society, older people, and most recently the The extensive submissions prepared for this first session have given us extraordinary body of knowledge upon which to build. The challenge is to ensure that the universal rights can be fully and equally enjoyed throughout our older age by clarifying their application, addressing persistent protection gaps, and strengthening the corresponding obligations of state parties. In doing so, this convention should strengthen the universality coherence and effectiveness of the international human rights system itself, while responding to the realities of longer lives in the 21st century and beyond. Human longevity is one of humanity's greatest achievements. The evolution of international human rights law should reflect that achievement. IFA looks forward to working constructively with all delegations in building a convention that both honors the existing human rights framework and prepares it for future generations. Thank you.

I thank the International Federation on Aging, and I now give the floor to the National Association of Community Legal Centers, Inc.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the panelists for their insights and reflections. We recognize the importance of building the new instrument on the basis of the existing international human rights framework. The agreement should be consistent with international norms, that is, it should not undermine or regress from existing standards or interpretations, so long as they are consistent with the human rights of older persons. But we should certainly not hesitate to improve existing norms. Amidst the welter of useful sources that have been identified today, We would like to emphasize one important resource for this updating and creative exercise, namely the general comments and case law of the human rights treaty bodies. These documents have been a very valuable way of updating treaties that which were drafted in some cases decades, indeed up to 70 years ago, and although they're not formally legally binding, they do in fact. Provide a good source of ideas that have been engaged with by experts and also engaged with by States Parties to those treaties. Let me give you 3 examples of how they might be useful in the present context, both in relation to age discrimination issues, but also in relation to more general international human rights norms. First, the General Comments of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against women in relation to gender-based violence have been very important in terms of defining the scope of public and private violence against older women and also in relation to the nature of state obligations to prevent, punish and limit— to eliminate, prevent and punish such violence. Secondly, the work of the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social cultural rights, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in their general comments and case law, have provided important updating on the relevance of climate change to the enjoyment of human rights. And so there are 2 examples of the ways in which we can use those. They are among many examples. As I said, they're not legally binding, but they are considered authoritative in many cases by international courts and tribunals and are drawn on by many governments. So let us not neglect those as we seek to update and bring treaties which were largely drafted in the latter part of last century into the 21st century. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. I now will give the floor to the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse. It seems that the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse is not in the room.

Is there?

Please, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to this discussion on the Convention and the need not to start or build from scratch. It's crucial that the new legally binding instrument is fit for purpose to enable the enjoyment of all human rights by all older persons. While the instruments should be grounded in the existing international human rights framework and draw on good law and practices that have developed over recent decades, it must explicitly address how all conventions and treaties specifically apply in older age. It should not in any way lower standards nor diminish existing rights that older persons have. It should also provide tools for all existing conventions and committees to include the rights of older persons in their work. It must be clear and unambiguous that all older persons are rights holders in equal status with all humans. It should unequivocally foreground the issues that lead to the marginalization and exclusion of older persons and address ageism and all other forms of discrimination discrimination that intersect with ageism and adversely affect individuals as they age. Developing a transformative and legally binding instrument that tackles the structural barriers that daily affect older persons and prevent them from the full enjoyment of their human rights is essential. The new convention must close the current protection gaps and dare to include specific new rights, such as a right to long-term and palliative care, and the right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation in all its forms. Whilst useful elements should be taken from existing treaties, over 1,000 documents and many presentations gathered over the 14 years of the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing in New York highlighted the partial or inexistent coverage for older people. Further, current mechanisms have been recognised as fragmented, and lacking in coherence and cohesion needed to provide older persons with full protection and enjoyment of their human rights. A comprehensive new legally binding instrument needs to include a much-needed focus on implementation, monitoring, review, and systems of accountability. The role of the Working Group and Member States in ensuring this will be key to the success of our current endeavour. As will the ongoing and meaningful participation of older persons, their representative organizations, CSOs, and national human rights institutes. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished representative of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, and I now give the floor to AgeWell Foundation.

Mr. Chair, delegates, and friends, we welcome the recognition that we are not building from scratch. Yet we must be honest, the Global South already has the largest number of older persons today, but international deliberations have largely focused on older persons of today, using us mainly as demographic statistic. This treaty, however, is for the many decades yet to come. By 2050, Asia, Africa, and Latin America will be home to vast majority of older population. We therefore cannot afford to have a document shaped only by the past and present. Older people in Global South continue to face severe challenges: poverty in old age, elder abuse, healthcare exclusion, weak participation mechanism, gender insensitivity, especially affecting older women, illiteracy, and digital exclusion. These realities must be addressed. At the same time, we must include the youth. They are the older persons of tomorrow. Their aspirations, and perceptions about aging with dignity are essential. Without meaningful involving— meaningfully involving both today's older persons and tomorrow's older generation from the Global South, this treaty will remain more on paper than in actual life. Not building up from scratch gives us the chance to create a truly all-inclusive, forward-looking instrument. Let older persons from Indian villages to African cities move from being mere numbers to active rights holders shaping their future. And this process, nothing about us without us, must apply across generations. Thank you.

Thank you. I now give the floor to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care. It seems this representative is not in the room, so I go on. The International Disability Alliance has the floor.

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the panelists for the valuable contributions today. I am Juan Ignacio Pérez-Bello, Human Rights Senior Advisor at the International Disability Alliance, IDA. IDA calls for a comprehensive treaty addressing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of older persons, which upholds and builds upon relevant CRPD standards when properly addressing the specific situation of older persons. In addition, the treaty should require a national machinery for implementation and monitoring and establish an international accountability mechanism drawing inspiration and going further in improving previous human rights norms and CRPD innovative provisions. Key CRPD substantive provisions relevant for this process include of course, Articles 12, 19, and 9 of the CRPD. Article 12 recognizes the right to exercise legal capacity and provides for supported decision-making, outlawing any substituted decision-making regime. CRPD Committee's General Comment number 1 must be taken into account. Article 19 CRPD, on the right to live independently and be included in the community, outlaws institutionalization and ensures access to relevant services, including personal assistance, to be active members of the community and not to be segregated or isolated. Accessibility obligations across the board based on Article 9 of the CAPD and access to mobility and assistive devices should follow and further strengthen CAPD standards, always for all of these provisions when addressing the specific situation of older persons. Focusing on national implementation, close consultation with and active involvement of older persons in all their diversity as right holders in public decision-making on issues that directly or indirectly impact them needs to be set as a general state obligation, as done by Article 43 of the CAPD. Only listening to the right holders, states can take informed, legitimate, and effective policy decisions. Article 33 of the CAPD requests states to appoint focal points within governments and suggests establishing a coordination mechanism for implementation. Inspiration should be drawn from this clause, noting that CAPD reviews have shown that these bodies require sufficient institutional relevance and powers to effectively drive implementation and mainstreaming. Data collection and disaggregation, including by gender, disability, and other factors, are also essential, and Article 31 of the CAPD can be a model to take into consideration. Finally, Article 32 of the CAPD addresses international cooperation and could also be considered. And in closing, a very important clause is one related to setting a national independent monitoring mechanism consistent with Paris Principles, and fully resourced to comply with its mission. Thank you very much for your attention.

I thank the representative of the International Disability Alliance. I now give the floor to the Centre for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry.

Thank you. Again, addressing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, This is a crucial existing treaty for older persons with disabilities. It also has widespread relevance for older persons without disabilities. That's because the rights which it sets out are very important for older persons as a whole. Putting the convention— the UNCRPD Convention at the heart of the treaty on the human rights of older persons will be vital therefore, including its focus on legal capacity, an adequate standard of living and continuing access to education and employment, accessible housing and local facilities, and accessible forms of communication, independent living, and opportunities both to take part in and contribute to community, public, and political life on an equal basis with others. Ending all forms of institutionalisation, and so ending services in residential homes, nursing homes, and older persons' own homes which are institutional in nature. And the still widespread employment of guardianship and of involuntarily being hospitalised and forced treatment, addressing the intersectional discrimination which is both so damaging and so widespread, particularly for women, dealing effectively with degrading treatment violence and abuse, including high levels of these in institutions; having access to justice and redress when human rights breaches occur; having an influential role over law, policy and everyday practices related to these rights. In the Treaty on the Human Rights of Older Persons, the UNCRPD articles might helpfully be applied to older persons specifically and expanded to cover particular forms of ageism. For example, the Treaty on the Human Rights of Older Persons might also address the marginalisation and exclusion from society which the ever-increasing use of digitalisation is causing all too many persons who are older, as has been highlighted repeatedly yesterday and today. The treaty on the human rights of older persons might also address the particularly negative effects which assisted dying legislation is having on older persons. Thank you.

Thank you, madam, for your contribution. I give now the floor to Qatar Foundation for Social Work.

Mr. President, it is my honor to speak on behalf of the Ahsan Center, a non-governmental organization which is working towards improving the quality of life and the standard of living of older persons on the basis of dignity and societal involvement and participation. There should be 3 priorities in an international instrument. Protection is one essential pillar. The systems for protection should be better able to intervene and to provide the needed protection, to provide the possibility for states to protect independence and the access to services. Protection would also include a digital aspect through digital platforms to allow older persons to use them in a safe way and protect them from any exploitation or ill-treatment in cyber form. This is an essential condition to have access to information and enjoy the rights to access to information. Secondly, the laws and legislations alone do not allow for the full enjoyment of rights. We must stop regarding older persons merely as users of services, but rather must see them as rights holders. And through education programs available for the whole duration of one's life and for cultural and health services— through cultural and health services, we should align ourselves with that principle. Then there's participation. Participation is a right which is necessary to preserve human dignity, and in order to ensure that policies are more responsive and more able to meet the needs of older persons, it is essential to provide for effective participation of older persons in decision-making. The promotion of societies that are more open to older persons is based on rights, participation, and autonomy. And we hope that the instrument to come will provide the necessary framework and a unique reference to promote legislation towards these goals to create a fairer framework and more dignity and full and effective participation. Thank you.

Thank you. And I give the floor to the Japan Support Center for Activity and Research for Old People.

Thank you for this opportunity. I'm Kiyoe Takata. I speak on behalf of Japan Support Center for Activity and research for older people. First, we should confirm that the new convention should be built upon the basement of existing international human rights standards and develop it further. It's not allowed to lower them nor inconsistent with them. Second, the treaty should clearly state the importance of human rights. It is not just a charity benefit nor just assistance. Older persons are human rights holders equal as other age groups. Human rights are essential rights and state parties have obligation to guarantee them. Also, human rights are foundation of international peace too. Third, Guiding principles, at least dignity, independence, participation, care, and autonomy should be stipulated. Prohibition of age-based discrimination and ageism should also be emphasized. Even in Japan, there are serious age discriminations. For example, when renting an apartment, older people are frequently rejected only based on their age. Particular attention should be paid to intersectional discrimination too. Fourth, as a structure, it is important to clearly stipulate the State Parties' obligation to guarantee human rights. This is not a family member's obligation, nor a mutual help among people. In Japan, a lack of adequate public care places a heavy burden on family members, which leading to sad incident of murder or murder-suicide by family members towards older persons or handicapped. They are an ultimate violation of human right, I think. Within the space State Parties' obligation, it includes the obligation to use resources for protection of human rights. It is not appropriate to limit the scope of human rights protection due to an excessive focus on financial or fiscal restrictions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Helpeits Deutschland has the floor.

It's now working, I hope. Sorry again. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the panellists. This morning I started with the image of a building site, so let's stick with it, a metaphor now as well, because all the panellists illustrated very clear in their fruitful statements this Working Group isn't starting from a greenfield construction side, but can build on a brownfield site. The Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing, for example, has already compiled a large and diverse body of evidence that consistently point to gaps in the existing human rights protection of older persons. These gaps are well documented by numerous other sources too, focusing on a variety of life course issues like equal access to healthcare, social protection, work, education, justice, autonomy, participation, among many others. The challenge before this Working Group is not to rediscover these gaps, but to design a coherent, legally binding framework to address them. In our submission to the Working Group's call for inputs, HelpAid Deutschland, together with its partners from civil society and academia, proposed a possible structure for the Convention. The structure seeks to integrate both traditional human rights concerns and emerging issues such as digitalization, demographic change, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence, but not limited. Nobody knows which challenges we are confronted with in, let's say, the next 10 or 15 years, and human rights don't have an expiry date. These technologies create new opportunities but also new risks of exclusion. Exclusion, surveillance, and discrimination of older persons, and these raise difficult questions about compatibility with human dignity and autonomy. We strongly encourage the Working Group to use such contributions as a starting point rather than postponing substantive drafting. The extensive documentation already gathered and the more recent inputs to this process, and what we are listening to this afternoon, should be treated as a do build upon. Playing for time or reopening debates that have already reached broad convergence would risk undermining confidence in the process and the commitment to older persons' rights. HelpAid Deutschland believes that the Convention can and should address both longstanding violations and new challenges in a clear, integrated way. The world has waited long enough. We must build on what we know. We don't have to start from scratch.

Thank you.

Thank you. I now give the floor to Silbernetz, EV.

Thank you, Chair. Please allow me to start by expressing my appreciation to the panel. From different perspectives, they have shown this Convention indeed does not have to be built from scratch. We do have a strong existing framework of human rights law and other conventions. And one thing should be crystal clear: the new convention must under no circumstances undercut existing norms. We are not starting from scratch. We are starting from gaps, as it has been pointed out. One of these gaps is ageism. Ageism is still widely tolerated. It is often seen as natural, harmless, or or unavoidable. It is none of these things. The new Convention must point out where ageism appears in its many forms, and the Convention should require effective remedies. Another gap is social isolation. For many older persons, isolation is the door through which other rights are lost. If no one visits, neglect may stay hidden, and depression may grow. If no one explains, services may not be reached. A third gap is digitalization. It must not create a new form of discrimination. Digital access is important, but analog access to essential services must remain a right. The Convention should close these gaps, among others. The most isolated older persons are right holders. They are part of the public responsibility of States. The Convention must underline that. And furthermore, a strong Convention can give local work a rights-based foundation. Thank you.

I would like to thank SilverNet-EB and now give the floor to Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes.

Thank you very much, Chair. To begin, I would like to point out that it has taken us 14 years in New York to look at the gaps and vacuums, and I know that there is outcome of that work. So it wouldn't be a good idea to do away with it. I like the title, Not Starting from Scratch, because we have made progress in the Inter-American System for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. We know that one instrument can support the next one, and that one The one after that, and so on. So when we speak about the Convention on the Rights of Older Persons, obviously we must be mindful of all of these treaties, particularly CEDAW's, but also the Inter-American Conventions on the Protection of the Rights of Older Persons. But the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was a legal revolution. It brought about a revolution in human rights because it has 2 pillars. One of them took all the heritage left by the previous conventions, and the second one was to make legal innovations. And that means that the CRPD's principles— one of them is the respect to the inherent dignity, individual autonomy, the freedom to take one's own decisions, and the independence of peoples. These are not challengeable, obviously, and this is also true for older persons, as well as the other principles that are highlighted in that Convention. But I would also like to say that the Convention always relied on the doctrine of rights and sectors of the population. They are the same rights that apply to everyone, but the way in which that happens is diversified. We have always told that the Convention would not create new rights. However, a convention does span its wings, it extends itself, and in practice, We see that there are new rights. And if I may, Chair, just to conclude, the right to independent living and to be included in a community goes beyond simply that title. It is to ban involuntary institutionalization. Universal access, the friendly cities, of the World Health Organization are an aspirational vision, but accessibility has a compulsory legal standard, which is justiciable. And so we can also understand reasonable adjustment in the same way. Intersectionality, which is also mentioned in the context of boys, girls, and women.

Right.

Ida also already spoke about the mechanisms. The Convention said that it must be distributed in accessible formats. And so when we get to the section on monitoring, I will take the floor again to add on that topic. Thank you.

Now give the floor to the International Longevity Center from Brazil.

Good afternoon. My name is Bibiana Graef, and I'm speaking on behalf of the International Longevity Center Brazil, ILC Brazil. I am also a professor of human rights and aging at the University of São Paulo. As a researcher and advocate who has been working on the human rights of older persons for the past 15 years, I would like to emphasize that Brazilian experts and civil society organizations have been closely following the efforts to advance the recognition and protection of the human rights of older persons within the United Nations. In this regard, the president of IOC Brazil, Professor Alexandre Kalash, has been one of the leading advocates for a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons, actively contributing to the work of the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging since its establishment in 2010. With his support and on behalf of ILC Brazil, we would like to express our great enthusiasm and hope regarding the work of this Intergovernmental Working Group on Older Persons. In this regard, we sincerely hope that Brazil will once again play a leading role it has historically played in advancing the human rights of older persons at the international level and reaffirm its commitment to this process by devoting the political attention and resources needed to achieve a strong and effective United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons. We also wish to reaffirm our readiness as researchers and representatives of civil society to support and collaborate with the Brazilian government throughout this important process. We stand ready to contribute our expertise and experiences whenever needed, and we look forward to working together with all delegations to make this process a success. Thank you.

I thank the representative of the Inter-American Longevity Center of Brazil, and HelpAge International Spain has the floor now.

Distinguished delegates, as we begin this historic process, we would like to emphasize one key message: we are not building this convention from scratch. For more than 15 years, the international community has documented the human rights violations experienced by older persons and identify the gaps in existing legal frameworks. The work of the Open-Ended Working Group on Aging, the OHCR, the Independent Expert on the Enjoyment of All Human Rights by Older Persons, the UN treaty bodies, special procedures, regional human rights systems, civil society organizations, and most importantly, older persons themselves, has provided us with a solid foundation on which to build. We also have valuable regional experience that demonstrates both the feasibility and importance of a dedicated instrument. The Inter-American Convention and the African Protocol offer important lessons on rights, implementation, and accountability that should inform our discussion. Learning from this experience will help us avoid repeating mistakes and strengthen the future convention. At the same time, we are not starting from a blank page because we already know many of the issues that require action. Ageism remains a root cause of discrimination and exclusion. Older persons continue to face barriers to participation, autonomy, access to justice, healthcare, and social protection. Emerging challenges such as digital exclusion, artificial intelligence, climate change, and humanitarian crises are also increasingly affecting the enjoyment of the rights in older age. The task before us is therefore not to discover the problems, but to transform the knowledge, evidence, and lived experience already gathered into a strong and effective international legal framework. As Garab has highlighted, the Convention should build upon existing human rights standards while further developing and clarifying how those rights apply in older age and addressing areas that have not been adequately covered until now. Finally, if we are truly not building from scratch, we must continue listening to those who have brought us to this point. The meaningful participation of older persons and their representative organizations must remain at the heart of this process. Their experience, expertise, and leadership are essential for creating a convention that is relevant, transformative, and capable of improving people's lives. Let us use the knowledge already available, learn from the existing mechanisms and regional experience, and build on this strong foundation to deliver a convention that responds to the realities of today and the challenges of tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you. I give the floor now to Professor Fusako Seki.

Thank you, Chair, Excellencies, designated delegates. This is Fusako Seki, Professor of Elder Law at Kanagawa University, Japan. We are indeed not building from scratch. The Universal Declaration 3 prohibits discrimination on the basis of age. Older persons are left to protection under other status. Second, existing norms do not sufficiently capture how rights violations manifest in older age. Third, and this is a gap, I wish to stress. International law is silent on how to distinguish age discrimination from legitimate protection. In Japan, one of the world's most super-aged societies, many laws concerning older persons use age-based distinctions, such as public pension ages and mandatory retirement. Japanese courts have long examined case by case whether each is reasonable, but no universal instrument offers general criteria to guide such judgments. Such criteria would support practice everywhere and help stop excessive restrictions in the name of protection. The CLPD showed one way forward. It did not merely repeat existing rights. It established the operational concepts in international human rights law, such as reasonable accommodation, accessibility, and supported decision-making, making universal rights effective for persons with disabilities. Building on this experience, the new instruments can become a new kind of treaty articulating the time a person has lived, the continuity of life and relationships and the recognition of the life lived, and providing a framework for age-based distinctions. This is a treaty our aging world already needs, not from scratch, but building upward. Thank you.

Thank you, Professor. And the last speaker on my list is Platiska Platform. Platform, New Technologies and Older Women. Platiska Platform, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I speak on behalf of Platiska Platform and CENEX Association for Aging Studies. We also support the joint GAROP statement. Behind this Working Group's debates stand real lives, my own and those of millions of older women in all our diversity. As we move from general statements to substantive discussions, we are not building from scratch. CEDAW and its General Recommendations No. 25 and 27, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the agreed—

Microphone, please.

CSW provides substantial— Can't you hear?

Yep.

Provides substantial framework for women's rights across the life course. The instrument should apply and further develop these standards in response to the lived realities of older women. Gender-based and intersecting discrimination leaves many women in older age without pensions and savings after lifetimes of unpaid care. I sat in Ankara, in the slums of Ankara, with a grandmother raising 5 orphaned grandchildren alone. She gave them every crumb of her food assistance and kept only dry bread for herself, going hungry so they would not. Older caregivers in skip-generation households remain invisible in law and policy. Many older women face violence and exploitation without adequate support. LBI must also explicitly address both poverty and violence as structural human rights violations. Mr. Chairperson, older women are the majority of the world's older population, yet among the least visible. 2 commitments are essential. First, gender equality must be a foundational principle and obligation requiring gender-responsive substantive and transformative measures that prohibit gendered ageism and address multiple and intersectional discrimination, including discrimination based on disability and gender identity. Second, meaningful participation must be guaranteed for older persons, particularly older women, including NGOs without ECOSOC status, through accessible modalities addressing language and digital barriers. Finally, the ultimate success of the legally binding instrument will depend on whether it prevents rights from being deferred on the grounds of domestic law, resource constraints, or family responsibility, whether it establishes care and support as an enforceable right, and whether it provides older persons with effective remedies and the means to hold duty bearers to account. This Convention is our chance to transform lived realities into rights, silence into voice, and promises into accountability. Thank you.

Thank you. I will now give the floor back to our speakers and our moderator for responses, further comments, and concluding remarks. Mr. Moderator, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson. From my side, I will be very brief. I will touch upon the question that was addressed on how the work of the Open-Ended Working Group in New York build ground for the work we are doing here. Without entering in long details about how the intersessional work co-led by Brazil and Portugal conducted its work in New York, there were also 3 preparatory briefings before the negotiation of the recommendations. There was a briefing with UN Independent Expert and by human rights treaty body, a briefing with the UN system, and a briefing with NGOs and NHRI. So we give like a multi-stakeholder approach to the work. On the briefing of human rights treaty bodies, we had members of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, CEDAW, and CRPD, and they all alighted a common message in their presentations. While existing human rights treaties provide important protection, they do not adequately or comprehensively protect the rights of older persons. For example, CEDAW demonstrated that treaty bodies have sought to fill protection gaps through interpretative guidance, for example, CEDAW General Recommendation 27 on older persons. However, they also mentioned that these efforts are necessarily limited to older women and cannot address the full range of human rights issues affecting older persons. And just another case was CRPD, that stressed that ageing and disabilities are not synonymous. While CRPD provides essential protection for older persons with disabilities, It cannot address the full range of human rights issues affecting all older persons, and I think this is also something that helped New York understand where the gaps in the current human rights framework are. Thank you very much. I now hand over to Secretary Alexandre da Silva, please.

Okay.

Haré una breve síntesis de algunos de los He's—

I'll briefly summarize some of the important contributions made. Currently we're looking at a revolution, a conquest of old age, and we have a very different demographic picture. We have less than 1 older person for every 10 inhabitants, and in other cases we have 40% More older persons, depends on the region. So we have longstanding challenges in the area of health as well as new ones such as digital inclusion. Ageism, I think, still is part— is found in several systems in the world. In making people invisible, denying their right to life, and not encouraging the survival of older persons. I also believe that it's important work in building this regulatory framework, which is why it's so important for us to engage in a dialogue In order to ensure that the document addresses fairness and equity so that we can ensure that the dignity of all social groups and all older persons is guaranteed. Something else that was said here was that the current understanding we have in aging, it's a welfare-based perspective.

Right.

perspective, and that represents a significant barrier in building policies and developing programs that promote the autonomy of older persons. I also believe, as said by another colleague, that the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, as well as other instruments which were mentioned here this afternoon, That they are all good practices, useful frameworks, so that we don't have to start from scratch, as was said many times. We also have to have a general debate about what the working conditions of the healthcare sector professionals will be, ensuring dignified work, reducing inequality in the distribution of labor between men and women, as well as ensuring there is formal work instead of informal work. And informal work is an issue that is quite present in our work. Lastly, I should say that intersectoral international efforts can be effective if we have a broad discussion including ministries and other branches of the government We must understand that each state, each ministry perhaps has a very specific way in which they work. And this makes me think also about budgeting. Our actions though, our programs and our projects should be seen by older persons in their homes, in their states, in their cities as belonging to them. And that about sums up what I wanted to share with you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Alexandre da Silva, for your additional comments and concluding remarks. I now hand over to the independent expert, Mr. Zvezdan Pirtosek.

Thank you very much. Sir, as you are aware, I've just overtook my role from Claudia Mahler. I understand that actually my mandate is not really to advocate for a certain or predetermined legal outcome, but to help ensure that the human rights of older persons are effectively protected. So my role really is to assess evidence, to identify protection gaps, to listen to the states, to civil society, to national human rights institutions, but above all to older persons themselves, and to provide a sort of independent opinion. This said, I must say that My first two months, as well as years of my work with the civil societies and as a as the doctor in medicine, really convinced me that there are such important gaps which just cannot be covered by not dipping into a legally different. Binding situation. First of all, of course, it is ageism. It is so prevalent, it is so normalized. We understand that it's so normal, so everyday, and it can be implicit, it can be explicit, and worst of all, it can be internalized, it can be turned against yourself. We know, and I've seen it, I mean, also through my first school which has now just finished, that of course that no human rights treaty explicitly prohibits discrimination against age. And it's We are always— I mean, older people are always mentioned somewhere against and other. So they really remain invisible. Of course, we have all these new conditions. We had digital worlds. We had artificial intelligence. And there are so different approaches. You know, some people would say, oh, I love it. you know, with my grandson, I can work on it and he teaches me. The other would say, yes, I will learn it, it's necessary. But there also are the third group which says, look, I'm having a decade maybe to live, please create me, if you respect me and my human rights, create me environment without digital world if possible. We are facing humanitarian crisis, and it's really the old people who are the most affected by the humanitarian crisis. They are usually left alone and many, many times killed in lonely, deserted villages. Do not forget the lesson from COVID 70, 80, 90% of all people who died were old people. So there is something special about this. We heard so much about intersectionality, and as a physician, I saw the consequence of cumulative damage which has been done throughout the lives of some older people. Abuse in old people can have a particular face. And there is an article whose title affected me very, very much. I don't know if anybody of you have read it, but I will just tell you the title of this article. It's called— it's called The Silence of the Lambs. Social isolation. When you are old, The face of social isolation is having its own face. It's very different. And that's it. So while I— my role really is to be independent, to fight for rights, human rights, not for a certain form of legal document, I cannot emphasize how many gaps, normative gaps, are there to be closed, and this is an important, important duty of all people sitting here and of the generations to come. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Ms. Silvia Perel-Levin, the floor is yours. Concluding remarks.

Thank you. I would like to respond to a couple of questions and then my personal concluding remark. First of all, I thank very much the delegate from Greece that you really asked 3 important questions. The independent expert already spoke about ageism, but really eliminating ageism— and I don't even use combat— eliminating ageism will help us eliminate barriers, will make the obligation as well to collect data that in turn will improve the policies, that in turn will improve the lives of older persons. So there is no question in my mind that ageism— now, ageism made it to the Human Rights Council resolution, made it to resolutions in the General Assembly. There is no reason why it shouldn't come now to the language in a text when I think that it is already agreed language. But you also make important remarks regarding the one government and how the work is on silos, and exactly the Convention will guide member states, will guide the governments in developing the policies that do follow human rights-based approach, and that really what we learn from CRPD is that really the realities on the ground, the programming, the programs that were increased exponentially since CRPD exists. However, and that is the link, the intersection with ageism, it doesn't really apply to all older persons because a lot of the provisions for disabilities end at a certain age. So, the elimination of ageism, together with the experience of CRPD in how to implement, will help us in really working as one, but also will—

Thank you.

I agree with you, the need for focal points, like the delegate from IDA mentioned how it helped at the national level having focal points to promote the implementation of the Convention. And also was mentioned, I think, from NHRI Thailand, the importance of the Convention on installing a national mechanism by the national human rights institutions that at the moment only partially deal with older persons. But having the Convention will give them the mandate to have national monitoring mechanisms. I think that I more or less responded, but I want to end with my personal remark. A lot of things were said, and a lot of things were said about starting from scratch, but I want to repeat that not to go into that false dichotomy. We have to do what we have to do in order to improve the rights of older persons. If that means reinstating or even sometimes duplicating— if there is the need to duplicate some provisions because they are improving the rights of older persons, we should duplicate in order to ensure that some right will not be forgotten and that explicitly is in a treaty. So we will have to do what we have to do. No build from scratch. Innovate when we need to innovate. And again, improve the rights of older persons. That's all. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Now I hand over to—

I forgot to cover well.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

I'll hand over to Ms. Heidrun Molenkoff, please.

Thank you very much. I would like to refer to 2 aspects. The first one is again about ageism and your question on how to include this in a new treaty. And I just would like to mention that we have an increasing body of research showing the effects, the impact of ageism on the health, on well-being, and even of life expectancy of older persons. So that's a basic we can use. Another body of knowledge we have is the research done by WHO. They have extensively published about how ageism comes to the floor.

We have a question here.

Which kinds, which different kinds of ageism we experience. So we can use this as well. I don't have to explain it here in detail. It's very easy to get this knowledge. But the second issue, which immediately struck me deeply, I must say, is the mention of assisted dying legislation. And I feel that this is something which is like a taboo among many organizations, among many states, among many organizations. We do not dare to talk about this, and what I hear more and more is the fear of older persons. What do we have to do? What is our justification to still be here, as maybe with beginning dementia, or without any money, no relatives? nothing, or as a person with some disabilities. So the question, what is the purpose of life of these people? Do they have the same rights to live, to a good quality of life, to being cared for, to be supported as people of all ages. So this is my thought I take with me and which I think we have to discuss more and think more about.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson. I'll hand over the floor back to you. I think that to summarize the discussion, I think it was clear from the panelists' presentation, the interventions from member states, from NHRIs, from civil society, that we are not starting from scratch. There's already evidence to further strengthen the work of this Working Group, and we are here to support you on this endeavor. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator, and thank you to all of the panelists, highly qualified panelists that are coming from All over the world for this Working Group and for this session in particular. We really appreciate your contributions and your comments and concluding remarks. I've been informed by the Secretariat that there are people filming in the room. I would like to remind all participants that filming is strictly prohibited. I would also like to remind that every single intervention could be verified online in our webcast. Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished participants, this brings us to the end of this meeting. I thank all delegations for their constructive engagement and the spirit of cooperation that has prevailed. Tomorrow we will resume our work at 10 AM for a debate on the outcome of the call for submissions with the contribution of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I hereby declare this meeting closed.