It's our convention: Use it or lose it?

Abstract

Unless action is taken now, at national and local levels, to ensure that the world's one billion people with disabilities derive real and lasting benefits, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is in danger of being consigned to the graveyard of missed opportunities. Although many governments have signed and ratified the Convention, evidence of actual implementation is an immediate priority, especially in the midst of a global recession. The scene is now set for governments to bring their policies into line with the principles and Articles of the Convention and to provide regular reports to the Disabled Persons' Committee of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights. Use of the internet can ensure that accountability is made public and includes the full participation of people with disabilities. "If the demands of justice have to give priority to the removal of manifest injustice (as I have been arguing throughout this work) rather than concentrating on the long-distance search for the perfectly just society, then the prevention and alleviation of disability cannot but be fairly central in the enterprise of advancing justice" (Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice, 2009, p. 259). "The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is only as good as its implementation. And even though countries are competing with each other in a race to ratification, its implementation thus far is abysmally poor" (Javed Abidi, Chairperson, Disabled Peoples' International, 2011). "We are the leaders of today. We have broken the status quo. And within the next five to ten years you will see persons with disabilities being leaders, being ministers, and ultimately holding the position of president in our countries" (Seray Bangura, Sierra Leone Young Voices, 2012).