The United Nations Human Rights Council recently adopted a resolution to begin drafting a convention on the rights of older persons. It’s certainly needed. There are currently more than a billion people aged 60 and over, and the number is rising, but there’s a gap in international human rights law when it comes to respecting the rights of older people. Civil society has a crucial contribution to make to the treaty process, which offers a timely opportunity to recalibrate how societies view ageing.

The world’s population is ageing. People are living longer, with global life expectancy at birth now 73.3 years, compared to under 65 years in 1995. There are now some 1.1 billion people aged 60 and over around the world, with the number expected to rise to 1.4 billion by 2030 and 2.1 billion by 2050.

This is a remarkable success story, representing progress in public health, medical advances and improved nutrition. But it also brings challenges. These include the question of how best to meet the healthcare, social support and economic needs of older populations in societies with falling numbers of working-age people.

These challenges are long familiar in some advanced economies such as Japan, where more than one in 10 people are now aged 80 and over. With a falling birthrate and a shrinking working-age population, Japan faces the problem of how to meet the needs of growing numbers of older people on a diminishing tax base. But this isn’t a question only wealthy countries face. Populations are ageing in many global south countries too, and often at a much faster rate than historically occurred in global north countries.

These demographic shifts are exposing a major gap in international human rights law. Older people contribute a great deal to society, fulfilling vital family roles, and playing a huge part in civil society, including through community service, mentoring and volunteering. But widespread ageism casts older people not as rights-holders and agents of change but as a problem to be tackled, and as passive recipients of charity and care.

Older people are exposed to an array of human rights violations, including economic, political and social exclusion, age-based discrimination, denial of access to care and support services, inadequate social security provision and violence and mistreatment. Ageism reinforces other forms of exclusion, meaning that older women, LGBTQI+ people and those from other excluded groups are particularly vulnerable. Older people are more likely to face discrimination on the basis of disability. Conflicts and crises can also have disproportionate impacts on older people. They can be targeted for abuses in armed conflicts or particularly affected by climate change.

Despite these many human rights challenges, there’s currently no global human rights treaty specifically focusing on the rights of older people. Assessments from the United Nations (UN) Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and numerous civil society groups all show that the current international human rights system is a patchwork that leaves dangerous gaps when it comes to older people’s rights.

Older people and climate justice

Older people are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts such as extreme heat. Yet they’re often excluded from emergency planning and climate policymaking.

At the same time, older people are also mobilising in climate action. Grassroots networks and organisations such as HelpAge International and European Grandparents for Climate advocate for climate responses that include the voices of older generations. Older activists bring decades of experience and a deep sense of intergenerational responsibility, making them powerful contributors to local-to-global climate responses.

Older people are active in movements that take direct action to highlight the urgent need to address the climate crisis, such as the two over-80 Just Stop Oil activists who held a protest at a Magna Carta exhibition in the British Library in 2024. Older people are also helping shape the legal landscape around climate change and human rights. In a landmark 2024 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights recognised the Swiss government’s failure to act on the climate crisis as a violation of the human rights of older women. The case was brought by KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, a group of older women who successfully argued that the government was breaching their rights because of their particular vulnerability to extreme heat. This victory for climate justice affirmed older people as agents of change.

Treaty process

The first international steps to legally recognise the rights of older people came in 2015, when the Organization of American States adopted the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons. This landmark treaty explicitly recognises older people as rights-bearers and establishes specific protections against discrimination, neglect and exploitation. It shows how legal frameworks can evolve to address the challenges faced by ageing populations, although implementation remains uneven across signatory countries.

Globally, some initiatives have emerged to address immediate needs and build momentum for broader reform. Most notably, the World Health Organization decreed 2021 to 2030 to be the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, an ambitious cross-sector collaboration that seeks to transform societal attitudes toward ageing.

Despite its valuable contributions in promoting age-friendly environments, responsive healthcare systems and improved access to long-term care, the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing is a voluntary framework. Only a binding treaty can bring legally enforceable rights protections.

Such a treaty is now in the works: on 3 April, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to establish an intergovernmental working group to draft a convention on the rights of older persons. In this era of geopolitical division and attacks on multilateralism, it’s encouraging that the resolution was adopted by consensus.

It took a great deal of effort to get to this point. Progress resulted from over a decade of work by the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing for the purpose of strengthening the protection of older persons, established by the UN General Assembly in 2010. In 14 working group sessions, states, civil society organisations and national human rights institutions discussed gaps in the protection of older people’s human rights, building an overwhelming case for action. This ultimately bore fruit with the adoption of Decision 14/1 in August 2024, recommending the development of a treaty.

Now the crucial phase of translating principles into binding legal protection begins. An intergovernmental working group including states, international organisations, national human rights institutions and civil society organisations will be in charge of drafting the convention.

If adopted, this will likely be the UN’s next major human rights treaty. It aims to build on the success of UN conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), which have significantly advanced human rights protections for their target groups.

Civil society’s vital role

Civil society organisations, working strategically across borders and generations, have helped drive the convention’s journey from concept to potential reality. Organisations such as AGE Platform Europe, Amnesty International and HelpAge International have built a compelling case for a binding treaty through strategic campaigning and coalition building. Their expertise remains indispensable to ensure the final text goes beyond the aspirational to be truly enforceable.

What lies ahead is a structured process established by the Human Rights Council resolution. The first meeting of the intergovernmental working group charged with drafting the convention is scheduled before the end of 2025. After drafting concludes, the text will advance to the broader UN system for consideration and potential adoption – a critical juncture where continued vigilance from civil society can help prevent dilution of protections.

The convention offers a rare opportunity to redefine how societies value their oldest members. The path from declaration to implementation will require persistent advocacy, but the potential reward is profound: a world where advancing age enhances rather than diminishes human dignity and rights.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • The United Nations Human Rights Council must guarantee civil society participation in negotiations for a convention on the rights of older persons, with special attention to voices from the global south and older people from excluded groups.
  • States must commit resources for the meaningful involvement of older people in developing and implementing the convention.
  • Civil society must advocate for their governments to champion an ambitious treaty that addresses the full spectrum of rights violations experienced by older people.

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Cover photo by Defensoría del Pueblo de Bolivia