Abstract
As a reaction to ageing of the world population, increasing attention has been paid to the social and legal status of older persons in recent years. Proposals have even been made to adopt a new human rights instrument that would apply specifically to older persons.
The paper first discusses to what extent rights of older persons can be conceptualized as a special category of human rights. It shows that although the concept of older persons is to a large extent socially constructed, the way in which the global process of ageing is typically presented turns older persons into a vulnerable group in need of a special human rights protection.
The paper then reveals that current human rights law fails to grant such protection. Although older persons are subject to various hard and soft law instruments, this regulation is rather incomplete and has various flaws.
Bearing this in mind, the paper concludes by making a case for the adoption of a new convention for the protection of the human rights of older persons.