AUTHOR: Redaspie DATE: Saturday, August 26, 2006 ----- BODY:

It was reported in the news today that nations' representatives at the UN have agreed a wide-ranging and legally-binding UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This in itself is fantastic news, as it signifies the extent to which disability rights issues have entered the mainstream. The question is how good is the final document? After some rummaging around, I have found the full text of the draft treaty that was presented to the final session of talks on the Convention that have just taken place. This is not necessarily the final document, it should be stressed, and various revisions could have been undertaken during that final session. This text is available in its entirety here, and it is a very good one on the face of it. Of particular importance to my mind are the following two points. The first comes under the heading of 'General Principles' (it's Article 3), one of which is:

(d) Respect for difference and acceptance of disability as part of human
diversity and humanity

The other is Article 17, which states:

Article 17
Protecting the integrity of the person

1. States Parties shall protect the integrity of the person or persons with
disabilities on an equal basis with others.

2. States Parties shall protect persons with disabilities from forced
interventions or forced institutionalization aimed at correcting, improving or alleviating any actual or perceived impairment.

3. In cases of medical emergency or issues of risk to public health
involving involuntary interventions, persons with disabilities shall be treated
on an equal basis with others.

[4. States Parties shall ensure that involuntary treatment of persons with
disabilities is:
(a) Minimized through the active promotion of alternatives;
(b) Undertaken only in exceptional circumstances, in accordance with procedures established by law and with the application of appropriate legal safeguards;
(c) Undertaken in the least restrictive setting possible, and
that the best interests of the person concerned are fully taken into account;
(d) Appropriate for the person and provided without financial cost
to the individual receiving the treatment or to his or her family.]

The last paragraph is in square brackets, which may indicate that this paragraph was added later, or is in some doubt. Personally I can't tell. The declaration that disability is to be respected as part of human diversity, and that to seek to treat a disability without their consent is an attack on their integrity as a person, is of vital importance. One can be against discrimination in terms of employment, education, access to services, and so on, but unless one recognises that the disability is a part of the individual, and should not be tampered with or altered in order to suit the prejudices and preferences of the majority, one cannot truly count oneself as in favour of the rights of the disabled. To claim that you believe in equality and respect for all persons, and then in the next breath to talk of the importance of finding 'cures' for disabilities, is to contradict yourself, pure and simple. The rights of the disabled must include the right to be disabled and to be part of the disabled community.

However, paragraph 4 is in my view a very dangerous one, and one I hope has been excised from the final draft (unfortunately not available online yet as far as I can tell). It allows forced treatment in "exceptional circumstances" without specifying what they are. The rest, about how such treatment should take place in the "least restrictive setting possible", and that the use of such treatment should be minimised and where possible replaced with alternatives, is equally vague. Without specifying under what circumstances such treatment is permissable, then it is almost inevitable that people with certain severe disabilities will continue to be institutionalised and 'treated' against their will.

For autistic people this is particularly the case. There is an air of something close to open season against autistics these days, with organisations like Autism Speaks, Generation Rescue and even the group of parents in Canada who tried to get free access to intensive ABA for all autistic children, pushing the line that autism is devastating, in a way no other disability is, and that only treatment and a cure can prevent autistic people from being forever a burden to society. By allowing forced treatment under "exceptional circumstances", the activities and goals of such groups are in no way undermined by this Convention, as they will simply argue that the sheer (supposed) horror of being severely autistic in itself constitutes such "exceptional circumstances".

There is also another much broader problem, which is simply that although UN Conventions such as this one are legally binding, that in itself does not say much. The UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought and conscience, free speech and freedom of assembly and association, has been ratified by such paragons of human rights as North Korea, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Israel. The similarly legally-binding Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has, amongst its signatories, Afghanistan, which signed in 1983 and where women have been systematically denied a right to education as specified in the Covenant. The fact is, although such treaties have in theory the force of law, there is in practice no enforcing mechanism. And indeed, how could there be? The UN isn't going to take military action against every state that fails to honour its treaty obligations! The only way that the rights of the disabled will be genuinely vindicated is if disabled people themselves fight together to seize their rights, not by relying on the supposed good intentions of political elites.

This isn't to say that this treaty is totally insignificant. Far from it - its importance lies in the fact that it signifies a recognition on the part of those elites of the importance of responding to these issues. Its usefulness lies in the fact that such a convention, and specifically the provisions above, make a powerful argument for activists fighting for the idea of 'disability pride', as it shows that such a concept has been accepted by the UN, no matter how toothless it may be as an instrument of implementation.

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