Article 4 [General obligations]

Article 4 is a key provision to fully understand the obligations that States Parties have undertaken by ratifying the Convention as the norm defines the scope of these obligations and their legal nature. More generally, the content of Article 4 is strictly linked with the question of the mandatory character of the norms arising from treaties and their implementation at domestic level. A general obligation to implement the CRPD and to ensure the enjoyment by people with disabilities of all human rights recognized in the Convention is imposed on States Parties by the norms of general international law codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Nevertheless, Article 4 of the CRPD further strengthens this general obligation requiring States Parties to give full effect, at domestic level, to the rights set out in the Convention "without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability" and making explicit a number of detailed obligations to achieve this purpose.