National Council on Disability
International Watch Federal Advisory Committee
Conference Call
Meeting Minutes
September 1, 2005

Roll Call

Welcome

Present:
Kathleen Martinez
Joan Durocher
Jeff Rosen
Pamela O’Leary
Sylvia Caras
Maria Reina
John German
John Myers
Janet Lord
Jerry Mindes
Mark Engman
Kathy Guernsey
Bruce Curtis
Eric Rosenthal
Marca Bristo
Jeff Rosen
Chris Tester
Dan Florio
Tina Singleton
Don Galloway
Judy Heumann
Judy Chamberlain
Anita Keller

OVERVIEW OF THE 6TH AD HOC COMMITTEE MEETING AT THE UNITED NATIONS
Kathy Guernsey reported that the UN meeting in New York was two weeks long and held at the United Nations headquarters in New York. At the 5th Ad Hoc Committee meeting, negotiations had reached Article 15 in reviewing the draft text with Ambassador MacKay of New Zealand. The 6th Ad Hoc Committee meeting picked up with article 15 with Ambassador MacKay assuming the Chair. She stated that the Ambassador did a great job, and allowed ngos to approach government delegations on the floor.

Ms. Guernsey stated that at the end of each article Ambassador MacKay would open up the floor to a plenary session and provide ngos with the opportunity to speak. She added that not only did ngos dialogue with delegations but the ambassador interacted with follow-up questions to individual speeches which gave ngos a broader opportunity to make their views known. She stated that monitoring was discussed which has not occurred before, and at the end of the meeting a draft report will be available on the UN website.

Ms. Guernsey stated that during the intercessional period a chair=s report is anticipated or a chair=s draft text will be put together by Ambassador MacKay. This will become the new basis for negotiations, it being the synthesized and updated version of the text as it currently stands.
The Ambassador is hoping to do a complete read-through of the text at the next meeting in January. The Ambassador is considering making the next meeting three weeks long.

Ms. Sylvia Caras added that the United States intervened and stated that a three week long meeting created Abudgetary problems.”

Discussion followed on the merits of a three week long meeting.

Ms. Reina stated that in the meeting there was mention of adding a new article on women=s rights or an article for children with disabilities as well as an article on international corporations. She stated that she facilitated these meetings on these articles and she thinks that American ngos have had more participation on this article (24bis).

Ms. Lord stated that there’s one article in the draft treaty on monitoring and discussions are really starting to heat up on developing provisions in the treaty on international monitoring mechanisms. She added that there were a couple side events on this topic and that this is an area where the US could be damaging.

Ms. Lord added that she wanted to echo Sylvia’s point that disability organizations in the US need to get engaged in this treaty process. She stated that there are a lot of American organizations that are not disabled organizations or disability rights organizations that have been working very hard within Washington on this treaty process. She stated that it is very important that disability groups in the United States engage more in this process and be the watchdog for forthcoming meetings. She added that she is working on putting together a workshop or session to be conducted at American University that would look at monitoring with the hope of raising awareness with US disability organizations.

Ms. Heumann suggested other organizations that might be interested in participating but may not have the time but would likely sign on to position statements and suggested getting in touch with CCD.

Ms. Singleton stated that she found interesting that there seemed to be a push for increasing southern participation in the convention process. She said that Handicap International started talking about a project called the ASouth Project@ in which it is trying to find organizations that are willing to sponsor representatives from DPOs in the south to come to the next session to help with training.

Mr. German stated that the 58th annual NGO conference at the United Nations will take place next week. It will be web cast simultaneously with questions coming in from remote locations around the world.

Mr. Rosenthal reported on the foreign assistance legislation in congress and stated that last year’s legislation required AID to make its programs accessible to people with disabilities, and set aside $2.5 million. Those funds have not been spent. He suggested that the funds be monitored closely to see what the State Department and AID plan to do with it. Mr. Rosenthal added that Senator Harkin=s office has indicated that AID has informed them that they were going to spend it in FY >06. He said that they indicated that instead of giving it to disability groups they are going to give it to big organizations that do international development to try and make their programs accessible. In the Senate version of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill , there is $4.5 million set aside and language specifically stating that should go to disability groups.

UPDATE ON FIRST PUBLIC MEETING OF STATE DEPARTMENT/USAID FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DISABILITY
Ms. Martinez reported that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice gave a ceremonial address to start off the day’s events. The rest of the day was mostly devoted to overviews given by officials at State and USAID on the different departments. During the discussion it was indicated the Department had no budget for the committee, except a minimal travel budget. There is no honoraria for the committee members. The FACA charter states that the committee must meet a least twice a year. Suggestions were made that the committee focus on three or four different issues. It was really an introductory, educational meeting.

Ms. Chamberlain asked if there were any people on the committee representing the mental disability community?

Mr. Mindes responded that there were not, however there was representation from the mental disability community in the office and they raised this point as well.

Ms. Zeitzer added that the next meeting of State’s federal advisory committee meeting should reserve more time for public comment and be devoted to hearing from the US international disability community as to why the Convention is so important in a world-wide context.

Mr. Curtis suggested that a practical and pragmatic strategy for how to make use of the advisory committee would be to attempt to begin educating the state department staff who are talking to us about these issues and lay the groundwork for future positive relations with the State Department.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mr. Curtis stated that Mr. Frieden had sent out an e-mail in the morning about how he was unable to join this call today because he is assisting with disabled evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in Houston. He stated that it struck him that the information and strategy papers that were developed after the tsunami relief efforts should be directed toward him because they could potentially be relevant to the current emergency.

ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m.