Why Now for a Global Treaty on Older Persons’ Rights—and a Path Forward

[Ambassador Luis Gallegos is President of the Global Initiative on Ageing and Longevity and the former Board President of UNITAR, where he led UN training efforts advancing aging policy.

Jody Heymann is a distinguished professor at UCLA, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and Founding Director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, where she led the development of the largest data resources tracking the adoption of laws and policies that matter to equality in all 193 UN countries. 

Aleta Sprague is Co-founder and Principal at Equal Futures and Director of Legal Analysis at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, where she has led work on meeting the health and caregiving needs of older persons and their families across countries. 

Michael Ashley Stein is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and has led successful efforts to translate the CRPD’s commitments into meaningful policy change across dozens of countries.]

All authors contributed to the discussion draft of a convention on the rights of older persons linked in the post.

By 2050, the share of the global population over age 60 is expected to nearly double. However, even as longevity is increasing, discrimination against older people remains widespread. While international treaties have been adopted to specifically protect the rights of children, women, people with disabilities, migrants and their families, and people from historically marginalized racial groups, no treaty specifically addresses the rights of older people.  What would it take to pass a new treaty—and what difference could it make?

Why a Convention on Older Persons’ Rights is Needed

International instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protect the rights of all people. These foundational treaties provide broad protection of rights without addressing the unique needs of particular groups, leaving their rights unrealized. For example, while the ICESCR provides a strong foundation for protecting the right to health, it includes no mention of reproductive healthcare—an essential piece of women’s health and wellbeing. Moreover, these foundational treaties critically overlooked certain groups. For example, neither the UDHR nor the ICESCR or ICCPR explicitly prohibited discrimination based on disability or affirmatively protected the rights of disabled people. 

These gaps necessitated the adoption of treaties addressing discrimination against particular populations. For example, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, affirmed that the fundamental social and economic rights included in the ICESCR apply to women and also included provisions protecting women’s reproductive healthcare access and prohibiting child marriage—critical steps to realizing gender equality. Similarly, the adoption in 2006 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) underscored that people with disabilities are entitled to all the guarantees of fundamental human rights treaties and also mandated inclusive education, accessible transportation, and reasonable accommodations at work as being essential for realizing equal rights. 

The case for an older persons’ treaty is similar. The overall protections against discrimination in the UDHR, the ICCPR, and the ICESCR do not explicitly address age, nor do these instruments mention older people.  Moreover, there are some issues of particular relevance to the rights and wellbeing of older persons—such as access to long-term care, caregiving responsibilities that often arise in later life, and the ability to both continue working and receive a pension—that existing conventions do not address. Meanwhile, evidence that older persons’ rights and needs are going unmet is found across low- and high-income settings alike. 

For example, older persons face an outsized risk of falling into poverty, as social safety nets often provide too little support to meet basic needs in the context of longer life spans, rising costs, and worsening global crises. At the same time, age discrimination in employment is rampant across countries, further jeopardizing older people’s economic security and undermining health for those who are eager to continue working as a way of staying engaged. As the COVID-19 pandemic underscored, violations of the right to health of older persons—particularly those in institutional settings—are widespread; countries are also ill equipped to meet the needs of older people during and following natural disasters. Meanwhile, new restrictions on voting emerging in countries including the US will have a disproportionate impact on older persons’ ability to participate in elections and influence decisions that matter to their lives. These are just a few examples among many.

These shortcomings have direct consequences for the 1.1 billion people over the age of 60 worldwide, whose numbers are expected to grow by another billion by 2050. They also indirectly affect billions more: the working-age adults, disproportionately women, who are assisting aging parents, spouses, and other family members; the would-be colleagues and clients who are losing out on the expertise of older workers excluded from opportunities due to discrimination; the children who miss out on time with their grandparents due to preventable health conditions; and the communities unable to fully benefit from the collective contributions of their oldest members.

Moreover, inadequate action on fulfilling the rights and core needs of older persons is threatening the stability of countries’ economies. One study found that a delay in age-related chronic illness that increased life expectancy by one year would yield $38 trillion in economic returns in the U.S. alone, or $367 trillion over a decade. In “super-aged” countries like Japan, South Korea, and Italy, where 20% or more of the population is over 65, supporting adults who want to and are able to work into their seventies and beyond will facilitate healthy aging and strengthen economies.  

How a New Global Treaty on Older Persons’ Rights Could Make a Difference

Through its impacts on both laws and norms, a new global treaty on older persons’ rights could improve the wellbeing and opportunities of older persons across countries—with benefits for us all. Past global treaties on non-discrimination have helped advance marked changes at the national level. For example, countries’ ratification of CEDAW has been associated with significant increases in protections for women’s political and social rights. Similarly, within the first seven years following the adoption of the CRPD, the share of constitutions globally guaranteeing equal rights for persons with disabilities increased by 50%. 

The profound improvements in longevity around the world, which have resulted from improved societal conditions, living conditions, and healthcare, are having immeasurable benefits for the individuals who are living longer and their families who have more time with loved ones. Greater longevity also has the potential to unleash immense gains across societies. Within workplaces, older people bring skills, knowledge, and expertise acquired over a lifetime, as well as high productivity and innovation, countering stereotypes. Within communities, older people often offer deep local knowledge and tested leadership capabilities, and play critical roles in civic and social life. There are also tangible economic returns: one study from Australia, for instance, found that increasing employment of people over 55 by just 5% would boost annual GDP by $48 billion. 

Moreover, even without these proven benefits, addressing discrimination and striving for quality of life for all reflect core values that we cannot abandon even in the face of urgent global crises.  An international treaty making clear that these values apply to older people—as the global community has done before for children, women, migrant workers, people with disabilities, and members of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups—even during dire circumstances is a powerful opportunity to advance change.

An Approach to Moving Forward: Beginning with Areas of Wide Consensus

A convention on older persons’ rights need not start from scratch. Many rights that are critical to protect on behalf of older people are common to all humanity. A three-step approach can move  this recognition into practice: 1) identifying all the human rights with broad global agreement and ensuring the convention recognizes the equal rights of older people; 2) identifying issues of particular importance to older people, using regional conventions as a start; and 3) ensuring the resulting draft as a whole reflects the most up-to-date global thinking on human rights. 

Applying Fundamental Human Rights to Older People

As a first step—recognizing that older persons’ rights are human rights—the treaty drafters  can begin with the core, fundamental rights already embodied in widely adopted human rights treaties. Among these are guarantees to equality and non-discrimination, protections of core civil and political rights, and protections of the economic and social rights that can matter deeply to equality in practice. Applying these rights to older persons by name would accomplish a great deal on its own.

As an initial test of this approach, we looked across six of the foundational international human rights instruments to assess their commonalities and differences:

• The UDHR (1948), which does not bind countries in the same way as a core treaty but is widely considered to be foundational to international human rights law;
• The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD, 1965), ratified by 185 countries; 
• The ICCPR (1966), ratified by 175 countries;
• The ICESCR (1966), ratified by 173 countries; 
• CEDAW (1979), ratified by 189 countries;  and
• The CRPD (2006), ratified by 192 countries.  

All six instruments include detailed protections of equal rights and non-discrimination as well as broad protections for social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights. All but the ICCPR—which specifically focuses on civil and political rights—include the rights to health, education, work, social security, and an adequate standard of living. At least four out of the six agreements also cover the rights to freedom of movement and freedom of expression—rights one would not expect to find in the ICESCR, given its focus on social and economic rights. 

Based on our own process for creating a discussion draft, we find that adapted versions of articles across core areas of commonality alone could easily comprise the substantial majority of a draft treaty on older persons’ rights. Beginning with these rights would also facilitate rapid consensus on a significant number of draft articles, given the wide ratification of the treaties where these rights already appear.

Addressing Issues of Heightened Relevance to Older Persons

As with prior treaties focused on other specific populations, it is important to recognize that there are some areas that, while not unique to older persons, have wider applicability in later life, and require special attention in a treaty on older persons’ rights as a result. For example, supports for independent and community-based housing options may be particularly important given the increasing fraction of adults living with a disability as they age. When addressing the right to health, it may be important to specifically address end of life care in addition to preventive and curative care.

Still, even in these more specific areas, a drafting committee has a strong foundation upon which to draw when addressing some of the most critical aging-specific topics. For example, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa includes particularly powerful language around older persons’ right to engagement in the community, establishing that “Older persons have the right to active, productive, full, and effective participation in the family, community, and society with a view to their integration.” Meanwhile, the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Rights of Older Persons takes an especially strong approach to the rights of older people receiving long-term care, which begins by providing that “Older persons have the right to a comprehensive system of care that protects and promotes their health, provides social services coverage, food and nutrition security, water, clothing, and housing, and promotes the ability of older persons to stay in their own home and maintain their independence and autonomy, should they so decide.”

Examining Important Expansions in Rights

Finally, to ensure a new treaty aligns with the most current thinking on human rights, it would be valuable to look in greater depth at the CRPD, the most recent population-specific global treaty focused on equal rights and discrimination, which may address some important areas that were left out of treaties drafted 60 years ago. For example, the CRPD includes language on information and technology accessibility that was not included in prior treaties.

 Assessing the CRPD is also useful because people with disabilities are overrepresented among older persons. Worldwide, just under half of people over 60 have some form of disability. While disability and aging are distinct issues, recognizing the intersections and analogues between them can facilitate the development of a treaty that comprehensively addresses all older persons’ needs. The CRPD’s provisions on personal mobility and accessibility of public services, for example, could offer important models for similar provisions in a treaty on older persons’ rights.

Conclusion

At the beginning of 2026, we’re closer than ever to a global convention on the rights of older persons becoming a reality. After decades of advocacy by older persons’ organizations and supporters, in April 2025, dozens of countries spanning all regions of the globe signed onto a UN Resolution to move forward on a binding international treaty. This step builds on a UN Resolution adopted in 2010 that established the Open-Ending Working Group on Ageing, which identified gaps in the existing international legal framework for older people. The OEWGA proceeded to meet annually until 2024, when it issued a decision urging UN member states to consider an international treaty as one key strategy for addressing said gaps. All of this progress was made possible through the extraordinary efforts of civil society.

On February 18^th, the new intergovernmental working group responsible for negotiating the treaty will meet for the first time. Even amidst an incredibly challenging time for human rights, a new treaty on older persons’ rights holds immense promise—and we have both the strong foundation and the momentum to see it through.