A/HRC/RES/37/22 Welcoming the work of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, and taking note with appreciation of her reports, 1 Welcoming also the work of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and taking note with appreciation of its general comments, Welcoming further the work undertaken by the task force on secretariat services, accessibility for persons with disabilities and use of information technology, 1. Welcomes the fact that, to date, 176 States and one regional integration organization have ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has 160 signatories, and that 92 States have signed and 92 States have ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, and calls upon those States and regional integration organizations that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention and the Optional Protocol to consider doing so as a matter of priority; 2. Encourages States that have ratified the Convention and have submitted one or more reservations to it to initiate a process to review regularly the effect and continued relevance of such reservations and to consider the possibility of withdrawing them; 3. Welcomes the reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the thematic studies on the right of persons with disabilities to equality and non-discrimination,2 and the right to access to justice on an equal basis with others,3 and calls upon all stakeholders to consider the findings and recommendations in those studies with a view to their implementation, where appropriate; 4. Calls upon States to take effective and appropriate measures to remove all barriers preventing persons with disabilities from having effective access to justice on an equal basis with others, and to ensure the full enjoyment of equality and non-discrimination by persons with disabilities in the fields of equality and non-discrimination and access to justice, such as by: (a) Guaranteeing equal recognition before the law of persons with disabilities and ensuring that they have the opportunity to exercise their legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life, as recognized in article 12 of the Convention; (b) Adopting laws and policies to address and reduce inequalities, including by facilitating accessibility, working actively to change negative perceptions and attitudes and providing for inclusive environments; (c) Taking specific measures to combat discrimination, particularly structural discrimination, and providing effective monitoring tools and remedies to improve the enforcement of these specific measures; (d) Taking measures to ensure protection against all kinds of discrimination, including by integrating the Convention into national law, where appropriate, providing tools and guidelines to apply its provisions and innovative aspects, empowering persons with disabilities with regard to their rights, building the capacity of public officials, including judges and monitoring agents, and ensuring effective remedies and proper redress and reparation to victims of discrimination; (e) Taking all appropriate measures to eliminate all situations of gender-based discrimination against women and girls with disabilities of all ages, who face an increased vulnerability to violence, abuse, discrimination and negative stereotyping; (f) Improving or adopting legal and regulatory frameworks that identify those responsible for providing accommodation in all areas of the law, providing guidelines and protocols for their implementation, assuring flexibility in their policies and budgets to accommodate specific requests, and laying out appropriate procedures and criteria to objectively assess when a requested accommodation imposes a disproportionate or undue burden, ensuring a case-by-case approach; 1 2 3 A/HRC/37/56 and Adds. 1-2. A/HRC/34/26. A/HRC/37/25. 3