Something is terribly wrong
by Beth
The media didn’t spend a lot of time discussing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) when the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York City last month, but our Easter Seals blogger David Sutherland, a retired Army Colonel, sure was paying attention. A post COL Sutherland wrote called “Important treaty on disabilities languishes in the Senate” was recently published on The Hill’s Congress Blog. An excerpt from his guest post:
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed by President Obama in 2009. Since then, it has been signed and ratified by 132 countries including Canada, Ireland and the European Union. Even the Castro regime, China and Sudan – hardly iconic world leaders in human rights and human dignity – have ratified the treaty. But the U.S. Senate, whose constitutional job it is to provide advice and consent on treaties, has sat on the sidelines.
COL Sutherland is a co-founder and chairman of the Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Community Services here at Easter Seals, and his guest post went on to explain that the Convention will be introduced in the Senate once again. He urged senators to join veterans John McCain, John Kerry and Bob Dole, who all spoke out as senators in 2012 in favor of ratification. Read COL Sutherland’s guest post on The Hill in its entirety here. When you’re done, you may end up agreeing when he says in the post that “When some of the world’s worst human rights abusers have ratified an important treaty on human rights but the United States has not, something is terribly wrong.”
October 11th, 2013 at 7:31 am
It sure can be frustrating. Thanks for leaving this comment and encouraging others to continue advocating. On another note, are you the same Cynthia A. Howard who I went to college with? If so….hello!