Adopting a rights-based approach to ageing

Human rights must be at the heart of policy work on ageing at EU, national and international levels. But how do we apply this approach in practice ? By Nena Georgantzi

A rights-based approach to ageing and older people includes the following four elements:

1. Embracing all human rights
2. Respecting the principle of equality and non-discrimination
3. Working with older people
4. Monitoring, measuring and assessing

On 10 December 2020, International Human Rights Day, AGE Platform Europe published a short document explaining how to adopt a rights-based approach to ageing.

Read the full guidelines here

The 2018 report of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) which called for moving away from thinking about old age in terms of ‘deficits’ that create ‘needs’, towards a ‘rights-based’ approach to ageing, also provides some further explanation of the added value and implications of this rights model. AGE plans to work with its members to provide more concrete examples of how this approach can be applied in EU policy and practice in 2021.