UN Treaty on Disability Rights goes into effect

So this past week the UN Treaty on the Rights on People with Disabilities went into effect without the U.S. ratifying it. Now, there has been a lot of speculation about why the U.S. was the only developed nation not to sign on...but this article provides what may be the "official line"...although it's a joke. As noted in this article, U.S. officials haven't signed onto the treaty because they feel it isn't as strong as the ADA and would undermine their ability to enforce the ADA...so, here's the punchline: anyone who has read the U.N. treaty and the ADA KNOWS that the UN treaty is much stronger than the ADA. Not to mention the fact that the ADA has been gutted since it was originally passed in 1990 and is just a shadow of the original policy...businesses and government have taken jackhammers to the ADA and have shot it full of holes...it's about as enforceable as a nationwide ban on eating.

Although I'm glad the UN policy is in place I do have to admit some trepidation regarding its ability to make substantive changes in local attitudes and actions. One of the main problems with the UN is its inability to enforce its policies. Look at how effective they were at keeping the U.S. out of Iraq, or stopping the genocide in Rwanda and now Darfur....they just don't have the capacity to hold individual governments accountable and, as a result, I have to guess that this treaty will be much like the UN Declaration on Human Rights....a P.C. showpiece. In fact, one of the few things I agree with Hillary Clinton about is her perspective on the UN Human Rights treaty. Several years ago she said: "There are millions of unjustly imprisoned people who don't realize that there is a UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights out there protecting them from unjust imprisonment". I just can't help but think that we will be saying the same this about the new UN disability policy in a couple of years....