Earning its name, Disability Scoop reports two days early that on Friday, President Obama will announce he will sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It's no coincidence that Friday is also the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
To date, 140 countries have already signed the treaty, which seeks to remove barriers for approximately 650 million people with disabilities around the world.
White House spokesman Shin Inouye told Disability Scoop, "On Friday, the president will announce this administration’s decision to join all the other nations who have signed this convention, thereby affirming internationally the commitment enshrined in our own national law and our long-standing leadership in protecting the rights of people with disabilities."
Read more at the United Nations' Enable website, a great resource for disability rights around the world.
UPDATE: United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD) applauds the president's decision, calling the treaty "good for America, good for people with disabilities, and good for the world."
1 comment:
I am so happy to hear that the United States plans to sign the UN resolution. Here I was lecturing on Special Education reform and my own country hadn't sign the treaty that the country I was working in had. It was a source of great embarrassment to all US international special education workers. We are one of the leaders in Special Education in the World. It is nice to step into a co-leadership role again (co-leadership is a term borrowed from Dr. Miller at Drexel- thanks M!)
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