Celebrations all round! Just in case you haven’t caught up with the media fanfare (not!) the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities now has twenty ratifications. This means it is now international law and the mechanisms to bring it into force, such as the international monitoring committee, can now be established.
New Zealand has not yet ratified, see Disability Rights Convention one year on, but this is huge for disabled people worldwide. Congratulations to those countries which have ratified. Disabled people there will now have a voice in monitoring the implementation of the Convention.
Each step in the development of this Convention has been a vindication of our struggle to make disability rights part of the human rights agenda. In New Zealand it gives further weight to the Disability Strategy, and a platform for progress in achieving our rights alongside non-disabled people..
To find out what is happening here go to the Office for Disability Issues and the Human Rights Commission.
Nothing about us without us!
