The Montreal PAHO/WHO Conference on Intellectual disability > Overview

The Montreal Conference of the Pan-American Health & World Health Organizations on Intellectual Disability was held on October the 5 th and 6 th , 2004. This Conference was organized by the West Montreal and Lisette-Dupras Readaptation Centers in collaboration with the Montreal WHO/PAHO collaborating center and with the help of the Fédération québécoise des centres de réadaptation en déficience intellectuelle , the Ministry of Health & Social Services of Quebec, and the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec .

This conference allowed experts in the field from the Americas to come together to discuss the state of fundamental civil rights accorded to intellectually disabled people throughout the world. It grew out of a desire to put intellectual disabilities on the international agenda by examining the impact of the work of the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities on the every day life of persons with an intellectual disability.

The crowning accomplishment of this conference was the unanimous adoption and endorsement by the 75 participants from 17 countries of the Americas as well as the principal organizations committed to the defence of the rights of persons with an intellectual disability of the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities. This Declaration represents a standard to which international organizations, states, and various social and civil actors could refer to in order to guide them in their endeavours aimed at insuring that the rights attendant to a full and complete citizenship are granted to persons with an intellectual disability .