Background Info

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The calls to improve the status of older people at international level are growing, not only by individual states or groups of states, especially from Latin America, but also more and more non-governmental organizations are putting pressure on governments to strengthen their international activities in this field. Nevertheless, the international community has yet to agree on how to improve the status of older people. On the one hand, the argument is that human rights are universally applicable and therefore there are no normative gaps with regard to the legal status of older people. On the other hand, the degradation of older people in many countries and sectors is an indication that the existing legal norms are insufficient to ensure the comprehensive protection of older people. They demand a convention for older people of a binding character.

Against this background, the Federal Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection is following Slovenia and organizes the second conference on the rights of elderly persons in Vienna on 12 and 13 November 2018. About 80-100 national and international experts from individual member states of the United Nations, experts of the United Nations, representatives of domestic and foreign senior-citizens' organizations, will attend the conference as well as representatives from politics, public administration and the European Commission.

The aim of the conference is to provide an additional platform to continue the debate on areas where further attention to the protection of the human rights of older persons is needed, as well as on elements that need to be better addressed by the international community in order to allow older persons to fully enjoy their human rights. Furthermore, we would invite delegates to come to a common understanding what had been discussed at the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing and to agree upon it by the adoption of a conference paper.