But for some random postings about the immanent threat of blue-helmeted terror on Facebook, I would never have known that the Senate was about to take up ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Given the Randian (as in Ayn) political bent of many of my FB friends, it came as no surprise that I was being called upon to contact my senators to urge them to vote "no" on ratification.
Of the conservative opponents of ratification, The Heritage Foundation makes a thoughtful case here but opposition by The Home School Defense League here is bit overwrought. Some might discount near universal support from American disability organizations (National Federation of the Blind, The Arc) as a result of their failure to appreciate the risk of invasion by the army of the United Nations but support by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (here) and various veterans organizations is more difficult to explain away.
In any event, the two most significant arguments against ratification are loss of national sovereignty and lack of necessity. Concerns about loss of sovereignty are overblown. The argument goes like this: The CRPD has set up a Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Committees under previous U.N. Conventions have strayed past their mandates to assert that signing States must make changes that have no basis in the text of the relevant convention. Therefore, the CRPD should not be ratified.
It might be observed that under the CRPD, its Committee must have been invited by the U.S. to visit the before it can even send an observer. Moreover, States like the U.S. have simply ignored previous committee recommendations that went beyond a convention's remit. But more to the point, is the possibility that the reporting might actually identify some areas that appropriately need action?
Another concern of opponents of the CRPD is that the terms of the Convention might provide Americans with rights that they could use to bring judicial actions. Here, however, the report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommends that the Senate add a series of "RUDS" (reservations, understandings, and declarations) that would make it impossible for a litigant to use the CRPD to subject a state or private entity to liability under the Convention ("The United States of America declares that the provisions of the Convention are not self-executing."). Others of the proposed RUDS would eliminate concerns about other matters such as the possibility that the CRPD could be interpreted to require a State to permit abortion.
All of this is designed to demonstrate that the CRPD wouldn't lead to the parade of horribles feared by its opponents. But what positive results might it entail? I'll address that question in Part II.
Of the conservative opponents of ratification, The Heritage Foundation makes a thoughtful case here but opposition by The Home School Defense League here is bit overwrought. Some might discount near universal support from American disability organizations (National Federation of the Blind, The Arc) as a result of their failure to appreciate the risk of invasion by the army of the United Nations but support by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (here) and various veterans organizations is more difficult to explain away.
In any event, the two most significant arguments against ratification are loss of national sovereignty and lack of necessity. Concerns about loss of sovereignty are overblown. The argument goes like this: The CRPD has set up a Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Committees under previous U.N. Conventions have strayed past their mandates to assert that signing States must make changes that have no basis in the text of the relevant convention. Therefore, the CRPD should not be ratified.
It might be observed that under the CRPD, its Committee must have been invited by the U.S. to visit the before it can even send an observer. Moreover, States like the U.S. have simply ignored previous committee recommendations that went beyond a convention's remit. But more to the point, is the possibility that the reporting might actually identify some areas that appropriately need action?
Another concern of opponents of the CRPD is that the terms of the Convention might provide Americans with rights that they could use to bring judicial actions. Here, however, the report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommends that the Senate add a series of "RUDS" (reservations, understandings, and declarations) that would make it impossible for a litigant to use the CRPD to subject a state or private entity to liability under the Convention ("The United States of America declares that the provisions of the Convention are not self-executing."). Others of the proposed RUDS would eliminate concerns about other matters such as the possibility that the CRPD could be interpreted to require a State to permit abortion.
All of this is designed to demonstrate that the CRPD wouldn't lead to the parade of horribles feared by its opponents. But what positive results might it entail? I'll address that question in Part II.
No comments:
Post a Comment