This just in from my Justice for All news service!
80 Countries Sign UN Convention Protecting Rights of People with Disabilities.
Note the sentence concerning the U.S. vote!
Dear Readers,
The article that follows is GREAT news 80 countries signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities today, on the first day that the Convention opened for signatures. The frustrating news, however, is that the U.S. was not among the signing countries. JFA will send several notices out next week of next steps we can take to apply pressure on the President and the Administration to sign.
19 countries to go before the Convention goes into force – and we’ll make sure the U.S. is one of them!
Stay tuned, JFA Alerts
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The full text from the Associated Press:
Eighty countries sign convention protecting rights of the world’s 650 million disabled in show of unprecedented support.
The Associated Press
March 30, 2007
UNITED NATIONS: Eighty countries signed the U.N. convention enshrining the rights of the world’s 650 million disabled people Friday in what the U.N. human rights chief called an unprecedented show of support to empower the physically and mentally impaired.
The United Nations held a ceremony on Friday, the first day the convention opened, for signatures. Not only did 80 countries and the European Community sign it, but Jamaica also announced that it had ratified the convention meaning that only 19 more ratifications are needed before the convention comes into force.
At the ceremony, speaker after speaker urged speedy approval.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour announced the huge level of support at a news conference afterward, saying “It’s certainly unprecedented in terms of support for a human rights instrument, but it’s apparently setting records for the signature of any convention in the United Nations.”
The U.N. General Assembly adopted the 32-page convention by consensus in December, climaxing a campaign spearheaded by disability rights activists and the governments of New Zealand,
Ecuador and Mexico.
“We would not be here today without the sustained efforts of the disability community,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told Friday’s ceremony.
“In three short years, the convention went from dream to reality,” she said. “On its adoption by the General Assembly late last year, it became the first human rights treaty of the 21st century, and the fastest negotiated international human rights instrument in history.”
The convention is a blueprint to end discrimination and exclusion of the physically and mentally disabled in education, jobs, and everyday life. It requires countries to guarantee freedom from
exploitation and abuse for the disabled, while protecting rights they already have such as ensuring voting rights for the blind and providing wheelchair-accessible buildings.
Arbour said “it’s very appropriate” that the first treaty of the new century “targets a community that has been so marginalized for so long” and that it focuses on rights not just social welfare and programs to meet the needs of the disabled.
She called the convention “a first step” in empowering the disabled, stressing that once it comes into force governments will have to enact legislation and change practices to ensure the
rights of the disabled. She added that an international committee will monitor implementation of the convention.
Yannis Vardakastanis, representing the International Disability Caucus which was in the forefront of the campaign for the convention, congratulated the 80 countries that signed “this
unprecedented convention.”
He said it represents “a very drastic” shift in the way the international community looks at disabilities.
According to the latest U.N. figures, about 10 percent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with a disability and the number is increasing with population growth. The disabled
constitute the world’s largest minority, and 80 percent live in developing countries, many in poverty.
The convention advocates keeping the disabled in their communities rather than removing them and educating them separately as many countries do.
It guarantees that the disabled have the inherent right to life on an equal basis with the able-bodied and requires countries to prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability and guarantee equal legal protection. Countries must also ensure the equal right of the disabled to own and inherit property, to control their financial affairs, and to privacy over their personal lives.
“Indeed and in fact it represents the recognition that people with disabilities should be holders of rights,” Vardakastanis said.
“The 650 million persons with disabilities around the world expect and anticipate that this convention will change the real living conditions, that this convention will take away the discrimination, the exclusion, and all the obstacles that people
with disabilities are faced with in their daily lives,” he said.
Source: International Herald Tribune (AP)
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For more international news issues, see:
Those of us that are disabled, find injustice everywhere we go, now we must endure worldwide sympathy. BTW, the Administration’s Top person for the ADA. – Alberto Gonzalez!!
I guess he was too busy saving his own hide to worry about 66 million legal residents and their rights!
Also note this got absolutely NO coverage in the American press. A good deal of the blame can go to those that control the press!
Barb
btw here is a link to the UN page for the convention.
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Some non-disabled people will probably scratch their heads and wonder why the US could possibly not support this convention. I would have too until I joined the ranks of PWD. Given the vast quantities of money wielded by insurnace companies and the lack of campaign finance controls, it should come as no surprise that the US has not signed onto the Convention. Sad. I base my p.o.v. on many years of personal experience as a PWD with “the system”:
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I had to the battle workers comp insurance co. for several years to get the benefits that the doctors (even the ones WC sent me to!) certified that I qualified for. You know that when state law has had to provide for a lawyer for every WC claimant, that the insurance companies are being wanton bullies. They reject virtually all claims out of hand. My lawyer, who used to work for the insurance companies, said they do that hoping people are too despondent and/or ignorant of the system to pursue their claim. My observation is that true enough, they often are. It is sickening. The same thing is true for the long term disability insurance companies, although there the claimant has to hire their own lawyer and there is no ceiling on what they may charge. And to top it all off, Social Security also forces most disability claimants to go through several rounds of appeal and then appearance before a judge, a process of several years when one is unable to physically earn a living any more. Oh, and that requires a third lawyer. So in all these cases, even if you ultimately prevail in court, you are never going to receive your due. It will always be minus the 25-30% the lawyer has earned by prying it from the hands of unethical insurance companies and a federal gov’t that is pinching pennies a la the VA debacle.
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n.b. The WC system in MA is supposed to be pretty good compared to other states. But as an activist, on provision really rankled me: the state WC info sheet says that if a WC claimant is arrested, not found guilty but merely arrested, their claim will be forfeited. Can that be constitutional?
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n.b.2 I love lawyers. I would have nothing to live on now if they hadn’t helped me negotiate the system intelligently. However, IMO the system is broken if lawyers are routinely required, as is the case now.
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Thans for the post Barb!
looks like the hearings on the firings are going to expand into hearings on the new hirings.