EACO is a Member to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People

A single instrument, a new international convention on the rights of older people, is necessary to:

• Provide a definitive, universal position that age discrimination is morally and legally unacceptable.
• Provide legally binding protection with accompanying accountability mechanisms.
• Provide clarity for duty bearers and rights holders on what their rights and responsibilities are towards older people.
• Bring together existing rights standards that are currently dispersed throughout various other instruments and interpretive documents.
• Redress the present imbalanced focus on older people’s economic and social rights by bringing all indivisible rights into one instrument.
• Put age discrimination and older people’s rights more centrally onto governments’, donors’ and NGOs’ agendas.
• Draw attention to, deepen understanding of and provide redress for the complex, multiple forms of discrimination that older women and men experience.
• Provide a framework to guide policy responses to demographic ageing based on rights, equity and social justice.
• Provide a powerful advocacy and education tool for older people and those that represent them for claiming their rights.
• Encourage a paradigm shift from older people being considered recipients of welfare, to older people as rights holders with responsibilities.http://www.rightsofolderpeople.org/list-of-members/