How bad is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the U.S. Senate today declined to ratify by a vote of 61 in favor and 38 opposed, short of the needed two-thirds? I provide some highlights in a new piece at the Daily Caller:
Libertarians, along with all those concerned with the autonomy of the institutions of private civil life, please note: under Article 4, section 1, part (e), states must “take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability by any person, organization or private enterprise.” (Yes, “any.”) The employment provisions of the current federal ADA apply to employers with more than 15 employees, but Article 27 (1)(a) would seem to prescribe doing away with any such threshold; it requires states to “Prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability with regard to all matters concerning all forms of employment.”New government spending programs going beyond anything presently in federal law? Yes, galore. For example, one provision requires ratifying states to “ensure” access to “affordable” personal mobility technologies. Another new right not embodied in present federal law: that “[p]ersons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community.” How much might all this cost? Another provision explains that with “regard to economic, social and cultural rights, each State Party undertakes to take measures to the maximum of its available resources [emphasis added] and, where needed, within the framework of international cooperation, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of these rights.” …The convention’s mandates, often quite burdensome to private actors, roll on and on: a new right of the disabled “to have equal access to bank loans,” live “guides, readers and professional sign language interpreters, to facilitate accessibility to buildings and other facilities open to the public,” equal access (at whose expense?) to all “information and communications technologies and systems,” a new right to “disability-specific sporting and recreational activities,” and, in Section 25 (e), a new right of disabled persons not to be discriminated against in the provision of life insurance. Under the existing federal ADA, terminal illnesses ordinarily count as disabilities. What does it even mean for a terminally ill person not to be discriminated against in the provision of life insurance?
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/senate-rejects-un-disabled-rights-treaty-good
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