Disability Rights Convention Rejected by U.S. Senate
June Zeitlin
Disappointing disability rights advocates and the broader civil and human rights coalition, the U.S. Senate failed on December 4, 2012, to agree to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The Senate vote on the treaty (61-38) fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to adopt an international treaty.
The convention, which has garnered significant international support, advanced global human rights by setting forth the first comprehensive international standard to protect the rights of people with disabilities. Much like the pathbreaking U.S. law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the convention reaffirms that persons with all types of disabilities enjoy certain fundamental rights. These include the right to be free from discrimination in all significant aspects of society, including economic, political and cultural life, as well as the right to accessible buildings, transportation and other important physical environments. It seeks to ensure that countries across the globe provide people with disabilities the same rights as everyone else in order to live full, satisfying and productive lives.
The United Nations adopted the convention on December 13, 2006, and it went into effect for participating nations on May 3, 2008. President Obama signed the convention on July 30, 2009, and sent it to the Senate for ratification in May 2012. As with the ADA, the convention garnered significant bipartisan support—with lead supporters including former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole; Democratic Senators John Kerry, Richard Durbin, Tom Harkin, Chris Coons, and Tom Udall; and Republican Senators John McCain and John Barrasso.
A broad coalition of more than 300 disability groups, veterans’ organizations and other civil and human rights groups supported ratification of CRPD. The coalition pointed out that ratifying the convention will maintain the position of the United States as a global champion of human rights and as the world’s leader in promoting the rights of people with disabilities. Supporters also have emphasized the convention’s benefits to Americans with disabilities abroad who have experienced major challenges while living or traveling overseas.
However, opponents have misrepresented the effects of the convention, arguing that it would cede U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations and undermine parental rights, despite the fact that the convention does not create any new enforceable rights, as the United States already has the far-reaching ADA to guarantee the rights of people with disabilities domestically.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on CRPD on July 12 and the convention was reported favorably out of committee by a bipartisan 13-6 vote on July 25. Before the Senate adjourned in September, Durbin tried to bring the convention to the floor by unanimous consent, but it was opposed by Republican senators.
After blocking consideration of CRPD, these same opponents argued that international treaties should not be brought up in the lame duck session and mobilized the Home School Association and others to flood Senate offices with calls against ratification of CRPD. Despite a broad effort by civil and human rights and disability groups to counter this opposition with the plain facts on the impact of CRPD, ratification was not successful.
The defeat of the CRPD has now received wide coverage in the media and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D. Nev., has committed to bringing the treaty back up for a vote in the next Congress. The Leadership Conference and its supporters are optimistic that it will be ratified in the next session of Congress.
June Zeitlin is the director of the CEDAW Project of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund.
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