26 Jul U.S. to Sign UN Disabled Rights Convention (Can World Socialism Be Far Behind?)
Story here. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force in May 2008. It has some 60+ parties even though it’s only been open for signature for a little over two years.
Signing, of course, is the easy part. Question is what kind of push the Obama Administration will put into ratification and with what sort of conditions attached.
Because the CRDP is so new, the Right hasn’t really had a chance to add it to its shopworn list of treaties that threaten to impurify our precious bodily fluids (Law of the Sea and the Children’s Rights Convention, along with the ICC). Might the Administration be able to slip it by the goalie — thus breaking the impasse on the others — perhaps with something less than the usual, completely defanging set of RUDs?
My guess is that anti-internationalists will have a lot to be upset about in the Convention itself. Check out article 28, for example:
States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.
But the announcement that Susan Rice will sign the treaty next week doesn’t seem to have generated a lot of chatter among the usual suspects. Another sign that they are falling off their game?
Unfortunately, OJ has one blogger in common with the Volokh Conspiracy, not to mention that most VC bloggers probably read OJ. So now that a post has appeared on OJ on this topic, VC can’t be far behind. From VC, the connection inevitably goes to Instapundit, and from there to the rest of the right-wing blogosphere.
In other words, I’m pretty sure this post has just ruined any chance there might have been of keeping this one a secret…
I can only imagine Fox News’ take at this treaty. As always, it will be a good laugh.
Aaaaagghh, the Right is coming…run for the (ivory) towers!
Or, grow up a bit. Since when has there been an international treaty so obviously beneficial as not to merit debate?
Or, grow up a bit. Since when has there been an international treaty so obviously beneficial as not to merit debate?
I think the original post was mostly in jest. My comment certainly was.
I’m guessing there will be little opposition and a very broad reservation on the part of the United States as to any kind of positive rights.
I’m guessing there will be little opposition and a very broad reservation on the part of the United States as to any kind of positive rights.
In other words, as with so many other Treaties the US get to have their cake and eat it too: they ratify, but at the same time they make sure the treaty won’t actually do anything.
(“the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under article 16 to prevent `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’, only insofar as the term `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.”)
Precisely. I rather liked Bush’s approach to these type of humanitarian treaties, as I find refusing the sign and ratify them to be a less two-faced position than the sign them with such reservations as to render them useless.