A/HRC/RES/25/20 Welcoming the appointment of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility, and encouraging him to consult closely with States, relevant United Nations entities, persons with disabilities and their representative organizations and all other relevant stakeholders in carrying out his work, Noting the expiry of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Disability of the Commission for Social Development on 31 December 2014 and the Commission’s decision to consider the possibility, at its fifty-third session, of another monitoring mechanism, with a view to strengthening the mainstreaming of disability in social development, 1. Welcomes the fact that, to date, 158 States have signed and 141 States and one regional integration organization have ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and that 92 States have signed and 79 States have ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, and calls upon those States and regional integration organizations that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention and the Optional Protocol to consider doing so as a matter of priority; 2. Encourages States that have ratified the Convention and have submitted one or more reservations to it to initiate a process to review regularly the effect and continued relevance of such reservations, and to consider the possibility of withdrawing them; 3. Welcomes the thematic study on the right of persons with disabilities to education prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,2 and calls upon all stakeholders to consider the findings and recommendations of the study; 4. Calls upon States to ensure free birth registration for persons with disabilities, including free or low-fee late birth registration, by means of universal, accessible, simple, expeditious and effective registration procedures, without discrimination of any kind; 5. Urges States to take effective measures to address and prevent all forms of violence and bullying against persons with disabilities, in particular in and around schools, other learning facilities and the community, including by putting in place inclusive and effective child protection measures that have adequate links to schools; 6. Also urges States to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women and girls with disabilities and to promote gender equality, in order to ensure their full participation and equal enjoyment of their rights, in particular in the field of education; 7. Calls upon States that are not yet party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully enjoy the right to education without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, and encourages them to transition to an inclusive education system, to enrol new students in such a system and to provide opportunities for life-long learning, taking into account and respecting the unique needs of different disability constituencies; 8. Calls upon States parties to adopt and implement appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy the right to education without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity by ensuring an inclusive education system at all levels and life-long learning, in accordance with the Convention, and urges States parties in furtherance of this objective to, inter alia: (a) 2 Make primary education compulsory and available free to all children; A/HRC/25/29. 3