Sunday, March 30, 2008

A Blogswarm on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

One year ago today, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was opened for signatures. It had been adopted by the U.N. in December, 2006, and on March 30, 2007.


"There were 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and 1 ratification of the Convention. This is the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations."



The goal of the convention is a simple one - recognize persons with disabilities as people - people with rights. You can find the complete document and also answers to frequently asked questions about the convention are answered are answered at the U.N.'s Enable site. To date, 17 countries have ratified this important human rights convention.


I hope you'll head over to Ratify Now for a blogswarm. What's Ratify Now? If you read the first comment below, Andrea explains that it is an organization with worldwide membership focused on the ratification of the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. What's a blogswarm? Head over and you won't be disappointed. You'll find information about the convention and the thoughts and perspectives on this historic convention of writers from around the world.


And the United States? We have not ratified the convention.



Check out the blogswarm!

April 2 - Edited to clarify Ratify Now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for linking to the RatifyNow.org blog swarm about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities!

I just want to raise a point of clarification: RatifyNow is not "my" blog. It's an organization with a rapidly growing membership from around the world, all focused on maximizing the number of countries that ratify the CRPD. RatifyNow.org is the overall web site and blog site for the organization.

I just happen to be one of several contributing authors and editors for the web site--and not even the primary one. I'm just visible I guess because I coordinated the recent blog swarm and because I contribute to a lot of the blog posts, which carry a by line (unlike many of the pages which do not--and were mostly written by other people). When I contribute to the RatifyNow.org web site, I do so as just one more active member in the RatifyNow organization.

David said...

Thanks for the clarification, Andrea. I edited the post.

Anonymous said...

David,
I am so glad I found your blog. My twins are 17 months and both have CP. You provide such great insight into what it is like to live with a disabilty. Thank You.

I would be honored if you would add us to your blog roll. www.bitsandpiecesofme.com I will be adding you to ours.