Pages

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Senate Gives Disability Rights Treaty the Thumbs Down

Senate efforts to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which played out this summer and fall, went on entirely under the radar. Few in Washington or in the media even knew the treaty was under consideration. Until, that is, Republicans succeeded in blocking ratification of the treaty -- a pact more than 120 other nations around the world have already approved -- by a slim five vote margin last week.

The news was in the fact that treaty ratification failed. The treaty was so non-controversial, to most minds at least, that its approval would not have created much of a stir. Senate Democrats already gave up on ratifying another treaty due to GOP objections, but in the disability rights treaty they anticipated relatively smooth sailing. That even this treaty, which calls on signatories to bring their standards for disability rights up to standards already enshrined here in the United States by the Americans with Disabilities Act, says something about the state of the Senate and the Republican party.

For many, it was eye-opening, a revelation about just how much sway conservatives have in the party and how deep those conservatives' antipathy is for international bodies like the U.N. For those of us who cover these types of things closely, it was not nearly as surprising ($).

I discussed some of the back story on the treaty vote and its failure with C-SPAN last week.