A Generic Construction of the Right System for Population Ageing: Draft Convention on the Rights of the Elderly

AuthorLin Zhang - Jingjing An
PositionDistinguished Professor of the School of Law and Economics at Shandong University of Technology - Corresponding Author. Assistant Professor at the School of Law of Shandong University of Technology
Pages75-96
A Generic Construction
of the Right System for
Population Ageing:
Draft Convention on the
Rights of the Elderly
Distinguished Professor of the School of Law and Economics at Shandong University of Technology; Assistant
Professor at the School of Law, Korea University. LL.B. / LL.M.(Shandong Univ. of Sci. & Tech.: “SDUST”), Ph.D.
(UHK). ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9237-4939. The author may be contacted by email at: linzhang@sdut.edu.
cn / Address: Korea University School of Law, Rm. 435, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02841 Korea.
∗∗ Corresponding Author. Assistant Professor at the School of Law of Shandong University of Technology. LL.B./LL.M.
(SDUST), Ph.D. (Korea U.). She may be contact at: ajj1983@163.com
All the websites cited in this article were last visited on May 19, 2020.
Lin Zhang
& Jingjing An
∗∗
Although there are many international treaties and conventions offering protection for
generic human rights that implicitly refer to older persons, these relevant provisions
are scattered, porous and lack of practical operability, which fail to provide explicit,
tailored, comprehensive and binding protection to older persons. In addition, there
are some soft law provisions that guide the application of law and add to the overall
protection of older people. However none of the documents contains legally binding
obligations. Therefore, the protection of the rights of the elderly must be formulated
as the hard law which defines the responsibilities of the state and clarifies the
implementation mechanism at the international and domestic level. In other words, a
legal system ought to be established to comprehensively protect the rights of the elderly,
which is just the Convention on the Rights of the Elderly. This article attempts to
present a proposal to create the right system of the Convention, which represents the
core of this potential international treaty.
Keywords
Right System, Population Ageing, Convention on the Rights of the Elderly,
CRE, Construction
J. East asia & intl l. Vol. 13/No.1 (2020); 75-96
Publication type : Research Article
Section : Article
DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2020.13.1.04
76 Lin Zhang & Jingjing An
I. Introduction
Population ageing is growing at an accelerated speed on the international level
nowadays. Under such circumstances, the appeal to create the Convention on
the Rights of the Elderly (CRE) by the UN has been increasingly reinforced by
various stakeholders. The rights system is the point of contention in the process. The
population ageing faces special and urgent human rights challenges such as ageism,
isolation, violence and abuse. While ageing society is processing intensively, each
challenge has become more serious due to the deficiencies in the normative and
practical framework for protecting their human rights.
1
These challenges involve
all aspects of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. The construction
of the rights system will: promote, deepen and more accurately dene the rights of
the elderly; strengthen the obligation to respect; protect and implement the rights
stipulated; provide greater visibility and recognition for the elderly at home and
abroad; and lay a solid foundation for the support of the rights of the elderly and the
promotion of public awareness and human rights education.
The primary purpose of this research is to present a proposal of creating the right
system of the CRE, which represents the key part of this highly expected international
treaty. This paper consists of ve parts including Introduction and Conclusion. Part
two will discuss the unique features of the right system of the elderly. Part three will
examine the efforts made by the UN to protect the rights of the elderly and the aws
of these endeavors. Part four will propose the plan to systematically construct the
right system of the CRE.
II. Unique Features of the Right System of the Elderly
The CRE will be a new core international human rights convention.
2
By examining
the existing human rights framework and mechanism of the UN, the categories of
human rights should be tailored according to the characteristics of older persons
and the particularity of their rights infringed, and additionally construct a protection
mode suitable for the unique situation of older persons. Therefore, the characteristics
1 I. Doron, The Debate Around the Need for an International Convention on the Rights of Older Persons, 5
GerontoloGist 586-93 (2010).
2 Id.

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT