U.S. signs UN convention on disability rights

The United States signed the United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities here on Thursday, marking the first international human rights treaty the U.S. has signed in nearly a decade.

Permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations Susan Rice (1st R) hugs President of the U.S. International Council on Disabilities Marca Bristo at the UN headquarters in New York July 30, 2009. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

Susan Rice, permanent representative of the United Sates, accompanied by Senior White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett, signed the international treaty on behalf of the Obama Administration at the UN Headquarters in New York.

A handful of representatives from the disabled advocacy community sitting in wheelchairs witnessed Rice sign the treaty in a small room on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building.

In signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the U.S. joined 141 countries in supporting international efforts to prohibit discrimination against the estimated 650 million people around the world with disabilities.

After inking the treaty, Rice said: "Our work is not completed until we have an enduring guarantee of inherent dignity, growth and independence of all persons with disabilities worldwide."

"So let the signing treaty today be an ongoing source of inspiration for us all in our shared struggle to bring all barriers down," she said.

"As (U.S.) President (Barack) Obama has noted, people with disabilities, far too often, lack the choice to live in communities of their own choosing," Rice said.

"Their unemployment rate is much higher than those without disabilities," she said. "They are much more likely to live in poverty."

"Health care is out of reach for far too many," she said. "And too many children with disabilities are denied a world class education around the world."

"Discrimination against people with disabilities is not just unjust, it hinders economic development, limits democracy and ruins society," she said. "These challenges will not disappear with a stroke of a pen."

For her part, Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor and assistant to the U.S. president for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison, said at the signing ceremony that "the United States of America proudly joins the 141 other nations in signing this extraordinary convention -- the first new human rights convention of the 21st century."

She called the signing an "historic step" for advancing a global commitment to the fundamental human rights for all persons with disabilities.

"Last week, the president took a bold step forward for our country and announced that the U.S. would sign the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities," she said. "Now, we've fulfilled this commitment."

Today, 650 million people -- 10 percent of the world's population -- live with a disability, she said. "In developing countries, 90 percent of the children with disabilities do not attend school and women and girls with disabilities are too often the subject of deep discrimination.

" The signing fulfilled a promise made by then Senator Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. The Bush Administration had chosen not to sign it, although it did participate in the negotiating process.

The convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006 along with its Optional Protocol with an aim to protect the rights of at least 650 million persons with disabilities worldwide, of whom approximately 80 percent live in less-developed countries.

By ratifying the convention, states commit themselves to enacting laws and other measures to improve disability rights and also abolish legislation, customs and practices that discriminate against persons with disabilities.

The U.S. Senate must now review and vote on the treaty, which needs two-thirds majority to be ratified -- a lengthy legal process.

David Morrissey is the executive director of the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD), a U.S. advocacy group whose board members helped draft the treaty.

He said he is pleased with the Obama administration's policy change, adding that the Convention provides a new language for the international community to understand the experience of people with disabilities through a prism of human rights.

"We must now begin to study the treaty and look at all of the existing policies ... to make the treaty real in our lives," he told Xinhua in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Countries that sign the treaty must set up independent monitoring mechanisms to ensure the Convention is implemented. They must also collect data and research on people with disabilities in an effort to prohibit discrimination based on disability in employment, education, housing, and medical care.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet