National Council on Disability News Conference
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Remarks of Marca Bristo, Chairperson
National Council on Disability

June 12, 2002

Welcome everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm Marca Bristo, Chair of the National Council on Disability (NCD). I'm very pleased that you're here today to help us in our efforts bring attention to an issue of global importance. I'm proud to announce the release today of an NCD White Paper entitled "Understanding the Role of an International Convention on the Human Rights of People with Disabilities".

We're here today as part of the ongoing work NCD is doing with respect to the development of an international convention. We engaged in this topic more than a year ago because an international convention has implications for all of us--not just for our disability community, but for our society, our government, our media, our country. It matters on many levels--not only an international legal level, but on a philosophical, a moral, a social and a practical level.

Exploring the ideas of how the international convention relates to all of us was the reason we undertook the study that resulted in the White Paper we are releasing today. We plan to use this valuable document to get the word out about the importance of an international convention. We will use the office of the National Council on Disability to urge the Administration and Congress to assume an international leadership role in the convention development process.

There are copies of the White Paper available to all of you. I urge you to read this document, to learn how you fit into the big picture. As I hope we are about to illustrate, if you are human, then this is about you.

The process to develop a convention is now underway in the United Nations--this was not so when NCD first became involved in the subject. At the beginning, we were faced with the challenge of how to support the efforts of a relatively small group of "champions" who were promoting the convention as a concept to the United Nations.

Now, that the concept is in the process of becoming a reality, we find ourselves faced with a very different challenge. Our new challenge is to demonstrate that this is relevant to all of us. Not just to a handful of people--to these international advocates--who have been fighting the good fight for a convention for almost two decades.

The US disability community is recognized internationally as having achieved great success in advocating for progressive national legislation.

With a sense of purpose and determination, groups from every part of the disability community-- large and small, grassroots, grasstops and governmental, cross-disability and disability specific-- came together in solidarity to demand quality laws and to claim their right to participate in the development of this legislation.

When we were told this that law we dreamed of couldn't be written, that it couldn't be passed, that the climate in the Congress wasn't right, we refused to be deterred. Instead we changed the climate. We changed it with patience and persistence.

Our efforts yielded the ADA--landmark "civil law" for our country--legislation regarded as an important model by many other countries as they develop or revise their domestic approach to disability.

The work we did together on the ADA brought us farther than we'd ever been before, but passing the legislation was only one goal. Our vision is for a nation where there is actualization of the principles embodied in that law, a nation where these principles have LIFE.

And some of us have an even bolder vision--for a WORLD where these principles have life. Where nations, societies, families and individuals internalize the just and true nature of these ideas as part of the natural order. Where disability is finally recognized as a normal part of the human condition. And where it is understood that the world has to adapt a little to allow us the access we need to join in.

Yet we find ourselves stalled even here at home to arrive at this level of enlightenment.

So, it's time to take our efforts to the next level. It's time for us to say "Yes, these are our civil rights. But these are also our human rights! And these are the human rights of our brothers and sisters in Africa, in Asia, in Europe and in every corner of the earth."

We are global citizens. The human rights that belong to the President of the United States are the same as those that belong to a little girl in Somalia who is blind. And it's time for the global code of human rights law to say so. It's time for an international convention to say "These are not special rights because I'm disabled. These are human rights because I'm human."

The United Nations agrees and is moving ahead to make this happen. We are on the threshold of a new phase in the history of human rights worldwide. The international convention movement provides a unique and powerful platform for all of us to promote these ideas of equality and justice, nationally and internationally.

It's time to eliminate the lines between our disability rights, our civil rights and our human rights. It's time to get rid of distinctions between the communities represented up here at this table. It's time to dispel the idea that we who have disabilities are not as fully human as that group out there that consider themselves the "non-disabled" community.

Because when it comes to human rights, there is no "us" and "them". There is only us, and we are humanity. And if some of us don't understand this, if some of us don't see this, if some of us choose to deny this, then humanity itself--that is, the collective heart, soul and mind that ultimately governs human relations--is in great jeopardy.

I'd like to share with you a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that captures this idea of interconnectedness. He said "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

Remarks of Wade Henderson, Executive Director
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

June 12, 2002

Thank you, Marca. Good morning ladies and gentleman. I am Wade Henderson, the Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The Leadership Conference, for those of you who perhaps don't know us, is the nation's leading civil and human rights coalition with over 180 organizations working to advance internationally recognized civil and human rights.

The disability community represented here today by Marca Bristo and NCD and many other organizations is an important part of the civil and human rights coalition and for that reason alone, it's a particular honor for me to be here.

Now, Marca has announced what I think is an extraordinarily important step in the global effort to secure internationally recognized human rights for all persons in our society. But this an especially significant advancement for persons with disabilities and I congratulate NCD for shepherding these efforts.

The Leadership Conference has long known and understood the importance of using internationally recognized organs like the united nations, the commission on human rights, regional organizations like the Organization of American States as part of a broader effort to advance civil and human rights both at home and abroad. Today, I'm reminded of the work of the late, great Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell. Some of you may remember Adam Clayton Powell as the congressman who represented the community of Harlem, New York in the 1940s and 50's when American apartheid was as virulent as anything seen in South Africa just a few years ago. And, it was Adam Clayton Powell who taught the civil rights community a valuable lesson. He used the United Nations and the Conference of Unaligned Nations as a venue to present the contradiction of American life between what we said as a nation and what we did as a people, with respect to racial discrimination.

He simply took the United States to the UN and exposed and embarrassed them before countries, both large and small, who heard the US appeal on the one hand to principles of democracy, while practicing invidious racial discrimination at home. And that contradiction could not stand. It led to an ongoing effort that bolstered what was taking place in this country at that time in Montgomery, Alabama and all across the South to help bring about extraordinary change. and that is what this effort today announced by NCD is really all about.

Now, the leadership conference is a supporter of other international instruments. We were an active supporter for the ratification of the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and also a supporter of the Convention on the Elimination of the Discrimination Against Women --which has a hearing tomorrow in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It's a convention that has not yet been embraced by the United States even though it clearly should be. And what is being done today on behalf of persons with disabilities joins a very honorable effort to extend civil and human rights both at home and abroad on behalf of persons with disabilities.

Now, what are we talking about? Well, what we are talking about essentially are 4 or 5 of the most fundamental rights that people in this country take for granted: the right to access to public facilities paid for by tax dollars that we collectively contribute to, to be able to have access to housing, both home purchases and rental, to be able to have access to healthcare, access to employment; access to the courts to vindicate our rights as persons within the meaning of the constitution. We take that for granted. In other parts of the world, those rights don't exist - or if they do exist they are compromised by a general bias against persons with disabilities.

A classic example, earlier this past year I attended a world conference against racism in Durban, South Africa sponsored by the United Nations. This was the first time in 15 years that world nations have come together to examine the important problem of racism globally and to look for ways at advancing the solution. And yet, ironically, this was one of the most inaccessible conferences and facilities I think I've ever seen. The United Nations was the sponsor of the event and yet the venue was virtually impossible to navigate if you had a physical disability. No access, no ramps, no assistance, no translators. you know, it was like stepping back in time 15 years and thinking about how we in this country have struggled to advance rights on behalf of persons with disabilities. And yet, in the citadel of what should have been enlightened thinking, you found some of the most regressive policies that one could possibly have seen. Now, multiply that over 180 nations whose commitment to this issue varies significantly. So the point is - is that this is an important step for the advancement of human rights globally.

Now, how does this play into our domestic agenda to protect the rights of persons with disabilities? Well, as you know, we are being stomped in the courts. The chevron decision which came down just a few days ago, a unanimous decision by the courts, enshrines a paternalistic attitude toward persons with disabilities, which says in effect that the government knows better than you in accessing the risks that you are willing to take to pursue a life that's important to you.

In the context of employment and in the post 9/11 world, that has serious implications. Will persons in wheelchairs be permitted to work above the 30th floor? Ask yourself that question. Will persons in wheelchairs be permitted to travel on subways at a given period of time if there is a heightened alert? How does that affect your interests?

So these are unresolved issues that are implicated by decisions, which have slowly dwindled away at the integrity of the most important civil rights statures for persons with disabilities that congress has ever enacted. And the issue now is how do we bolster, what we can to advance our goal while at the same time pursuing effectively, remedies both at home and abroad? And that's why what is being done today, I think is so important. It ties in all that we are doing both at home and abroad to help advance a collective agenda that we know without our energy is likely to go nowhere.

So it's important. I think this is a tremendous step. The civil rights coalition of all organizations within the leadership conference fully supports this measure and is prepared to work with NCD and other organizations to advance our goal. And with that in mind, we look forward to future work on this important effort together.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Statement of Holly Burkhalter, Advocacy Director, Physicians for Human Rights

June 12, 2002

Physicians for Human Rights is proud to join today with leading representatives of the U.S. civil rights and disability rights communities in support of a strong international convention affirming the human rights of people with mental or physical disabilities. Persons with disabilities suffer abuses in almost every country in the world, which, if they were inflicted on non-disabled persons, would immediately be denounced as gross abuses of internationally recognized human rights. Adults and children with mental retardation or mental illness, for example, are warehoused in filthy, dangerous, and negligent institutions where they are vulnerable to abuse, including sexual abuse and torture.

The international human rights community has become expert over the years in documenting violations of the laws of war, in affirming the rights of prisoners and detainees, in monitoring discrimination against women and ethnic minorities, and in appealing for protection from torture and inhumane treatment. But discrimination against persons with mental or physical disabilities and gross abuses against the most vulnerable among them--adults and children housed in state institutions --has largely escaped the notice of the human rights community.

One of the reasons why is because the body of international human rights laws from which organizations like Physicians for Human Rights derive our mandate contain significant gaps with regard to rights and protection for persons with disabilities. For example, the existing international standards, scattered throughout various regimen and treaties, do not prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities, do not prohibit torture and inhumane treatment, and include no mandatory monitoring and reporting requirements.

That situation has now changed. The announcement by the United Nations of its intention to create an International Disability and Human Rights Convention provides an opportunity and an obligation for the international human rights movement to become engaged to ensure the best possible rights protection for persons with mental and physical disabilities.

The international human rights community has been crucially involved in the development and promotion of other human rights instruments, including the International Mine Ban Treaty and the creation of the International Criminal Court. Gaining U.S. support for the new International Disability and Human Rights Convention will be a difficult task and its proponents will face many of the same challenges from the U.S. government that we have faced with regard to participation in the International Criminal Court. Happily, we have new resources for work on the Disability Rights Convention that we did not have on other human rights instruments: a vibrant American constituency. American citizens with mental or physical disabilities, and the superb civil society organizations that represent their interests, have proved how strong a movement exists here in the U.S. on behalf of disability rights with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And the American civil rights community, also a strong supporter of disability rights, has decades of experience in domestic and international human rights initiatives to assure the rights of ethnic and racial minorities.

These three communities: human rights, disability rights, and civil rights, are joining together for the first time in our history to pursue an effort that each of us are deeply committed to: assuring the rights of persons with mental and physical disabilities through an international convention. This effort represents a maturing and a deepening of human rights work for all three communities, and a collaboration that will enhance the efforts of each of our organzations and constituencies.