By Joseph Shapiro on National Public Radio:

Some 140 nations have signed a new United Nations convention to protect the human rights of people with disabilities, but the United States had refused to support it until yesterday. President Obama announced that the U.S. will now sign, but he’ll need to get the Senate to vote to ratify.

What was the source of the earlier reluctance? Dick Thornburgh, attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, has an opinion. “It’s always been hard for me to figure out what the basis for the opposition was, but I would speculate there is some resistance to the UN in general in this country …,” he said.

The measure would require countries to guarantee that people with disabilities have legal rights to things like jobs, education and access to public places.

More coverage of the President’s announcement from the ABC News Political Punch Blog and Associated Press.

From the President’s remarks:

“Disability rights aren’t just civil rights to be enforced here at home; they’re universal rights to be recognized and promoted around the world.

… “Today, 650 million people, ten percent of the world’s population, live with a disability. In developing countries, 90 percent of the children with disabilities don’t attend school.

… “I am not satisfied. I am proud of the progress we have made but I am not satisfied — and I know you are not either — until every American with a disability can learn in their local public school in the manner that’s best for them. Until they can apply for a job without discrimination and live and work independently in their communities, if that is what they choose, we have got more work to do. As long as we as a people still too easily succumb to casual discrimination or fear of the unfamiliar, we’ve still got more work to do.”

Obama was joined by New York Gov. David Paterson; Tammy Duckworth, an assistant Veterans Affairs secretary; former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.; and Senator Hillary Clinton who signed a celebratory proclamation commemorating the announcement.

Earlier post here.

(Associated Press photo)

UPDATE: CSPAN video here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, Obama administration, human rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.