The Maldives Cabinet has approved the country’s accession to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with President Dr Mohamed Muizzu set to submit the matter to the Parliament for approval.
The decision was taken following a paper submitted by the Ministry of Health, Family and Welfare at the Cabinet meeting held on Sunday, 20 September 2026. As accession to the protocol requires parliamentary approval under Article 93(a) of the Constitution, the President has forwarded the matter to Parliament for consideration.
The Optional Protocol provides additional mechanisms to strengthen the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the Maldives ratified on 5 April 2010.
Although the Maldives is a party to the main convention, it has not yet joined the Optional Protocol, which allows states to voluntarily accede. The country has received recommendations during international human rights reviews to ratify the protocol.
The protocol establishes two mechanisms to support accountability under the Convention. One allows individuals or groups to submit complaints to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities over alleged violations of their rights, after exhausting available domestic legal remedies.
The second mechanism allows the UN Committee to conduct confidential inquiries when it receives reliable information suggesting that a state party may have committed serious or systematic violations of rights protected under the convention.
If approved by the Parliament, the accession would enable individuals in the Maldives to access these international mechanisms for seeking review of alleged violations of disability rights under the framework of the United Nations.