June 23, 2026
Editor’s Note: Guest authors Elizabeth Murray, Professor Nora Groce, and Professor Maria Kett from the International Disability Research Centre at University College London, share their perspective on the current state of disability rights in security and peace agendas.
Background
Earlier this month, signatories to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), along with hundreds of civil society organizations, gathered in New York for the annual Conference of States Parties to the CRPD, marking 20 years since the treaty’s ratification. The CRPD provides a framework for the modern disability movement, and the anniversary of its ratification creates a particularly apt occasion to review progress and gaps in its implementation.
The official themes of this year’s conference sessions included resilient societies; moving beyond symbolic participation to meaningful representation; and creating a world free from exploitation, violence, and abuse for persons with disabilities. Outside of the official sessions, side events hosted by UN Missions, civil society, and even the private sector provided space for a wider range of conversations about progress, including discussions around United Nations Security Council Resolution 2475 (UNSCR 2475), which marked its seventh anniversary on June 20, 2026. The dialogue focused on the resolution’s call on parties to protect people with disabilities in conflict, facilitate their access to humanitarian relief, and ensure their inclusion in decision making around humanitarian action and peacebuilding.
UNSCR Implementation & Gaps
As a central document in the disability, peace, and security movement, UNSCR 2475 is a new yet critically important strand in the peacebuilding field. Persons with disabilities comprise at least 16% of the world’s population and face disproportionate risk of harm during conflict and natural disasters. These harms can include direct acts of violence (including conflict-related sexual violence), incidental violence, inability to flee conflict, death or injury of caregivers, the unraveling of family and community support, heightened stigma, loss of assistive devices, and inaccessible or limited humanitarian relief. Disability is also a frequent result of both active conflict and the explosive remnants of war. Additionally, conflict and disaster worsen the long-term socioeconomic status of persons with disabilities through diminished access to education, employment, and transportation. Both short and long-term risks are compounded for women with disabilities, children with disabilities, and older persons with disabilities. Refugees with disabilities are also doubly disadvantaged, as they may face greater difficulty fleeing conflict and often encounter additional barriers associated with legal status.
Although UNSCR 2475 includes 11 points aimed at providing a comprehensive approach to disability, peace, and conflict, member states and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) point out that implementation lags severely. Parties to conflict routinely fail to take even basic measures to protect persons with disabilities. It is still common practice for multilateral agencies, governments, and NGOs to exclude persons with disabilities in peacebuilding and peace processes – or to include them only superficially – and often do not collect disability-disaggregated data that could support greater inclusion.
When persons with disabilities are included in peacebuilding agendas, it is most often those with conflict-acquired physical disabilities who are asked to be part of the discourse. Other groups, such as those with pre-existing disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disabilities, are disproportionately excluded and stigmatized. Compared to UNSCR 1325 on women, peace, and security and UNSCR 2250 on youth peace and security, UNSCR 2475 lacks a formal implementation mechanism, such as a National Action Plan (NAP).
Recommendations
It is difficult to envision a large-scale revitalization of Resolution 2475 amid declining support for multilateralism and a retrenchment of foreign aid more broadly. Nonetheless, governments, agencies, NGOs, and foundations must try. Especially as aid budgets decline and fewer programs are consequently funded, it is important that donors require funded programs to be disability inclusive and hold funding recipients accountable for meeting those standards. An important first step is ensuring that persons with disabilities and OPDs are included –as leaders, trainers, and key partners – from the very outset of any program or process. Meaningful inclusion happens much more readily when it has been adequately accounted for in a program’s plans and budget at the earliest stages. Funding for OPDs themselves is also critical, as they are often excluded from funding mechanisms due to inaccessibility or requirements that demonstrate extensive financial and administrative capacity.
More broadly, the disability movement could benefit from deepening alliances and shared goals with other movements – including women, youth, indigenous persons, and the LGBTQ+ community. Including a disability pillar within the existing NAPs for the women, peace, and security and youth, peace, and security movements would be a tangible way to build cross-movement synergy. Thus far, peacekeeping mandates have been inconsistent in their approach to disability. These mandates and mandate renewals should consistently call specifically for the inclusion and protection of persons with disabilities, not merely as part of a broader category of protected groups. Beyond peacekeeping mandates, the most powerful changes that member states can make will come through enacting 2475 in their national documents, including military doctrine and planning, legal frameworks, and post-conflict reconstruction. This will also ensure harmonization with the CRPD. These are practical initial steps to protect persons with disabilities from disproportionate harm during conflicts. By actively including underrepresented voices in discussions and decisions related to peace processes, we can promote more inclusive and equitable approaches to conflict resolution.