Children with Disabilities in the Committee Ministers of the Council of Europe’s Soft Law

Abstract

The rights and freedoms of disabled children have for a long time been a very important subject for the international protection. The Council of Europe actively participates in this process creating a legal standard to respect the rights of this special social group. A very important contribution is assigned to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which, as a statutory body, issued a recommendation for member states according to which states should create legal protection for disabled children. The subject of the following article is to analyse legislative acts. Although they are the acts of the so called soft law, they play an important role in creating the legal standard for the rights and freedoms of disabled children. The role of these documents is a lot bigger if you consider the fact that there is nowadays no treaty that pays attention to the issue of protection of disabled children and discusses these issues in any great detail. Therefore, recommendations detail international legal regulations, i.e. the Convention on the children’s rights or the Convention on the rights of disabled people referring to the protection of the rights of disabled children only to a minor extent. The analysis included three recommendations of the Committee of Ministers, which focused on the subject of disabled children in the following areas: their integration in social life, deinstitutionalisation, education and integration of children with autism spectrum disorders.