Kevin Rudd Labour Prime Minister of Australia endorses UN Convention and Optional Protocol

Australians with disabilities will be able to appeal to the United Nations for relief if all else fails. The UN may investigate countries who sign the protocol.

From Government Monitor

Australia has signed onto the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as being a signatory nation to the Convention.

The Optional Protocol provides persons with disabilities an avenue for relief if the country they live in does not address their concerns.

The first is a procedural avenue that… will enable individuals or groups of individuals to bring petitions to the UN Committee that has been established to monitor implementation of the disability convention if they believe that their rights under that convention have been breached. The second is an inquiry procedure giving the Committee authority to undertake inquiries when reliable information is received into allegations of grave or systematic violations of convention rights. Politics.net

The Optional Protocol strengthens the UN Convention which itself is a huge step towards world wide human rights for the disabled.

The Australian Government press site reported,

“The entry into force of the Optional Protocol is an important milestone for people with a disability in Australia and further demonstrates the Government’s leadership at an international level,” “Attorney-General, Robert) Mr McClelland said.

The Rudd Government ratified the Convention in July 2008, making it one of the first Western countries to do so. Australia joins more than 60 nations that are now parties to the Convention and over 40 nations that have acceded to or ratified the Optional Protocol.

The Attorney-General has also declared the Convention under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 to enable the Australian Human Rights Commission to conciliate complaints based on breaches of the Convention. the Gov Monitor

Canada has signed the UN Declaration but not ratified it nor signed the Optional Protocol. For a liberal democracy, Canada is lagging many less advanced and prosperous countries in protecting the human rights of people with disabilities.

As part of the post-World War II movement for Human Rights, people with disabilities have been moving from medical and paternalistic attitudes in the world to a human rights model. People with disabilities do not want hand outs or charity. They deserve the right to employment, public services, access to education and freedom from discrimination.

The Convention marks a “paradigm shift” in attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as “objects” of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as “subjects” with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.

The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced.