``...it is the absolute duty of the nation-state to provide these physical and positive securities of the person (food, clothing, shelter, health)...'' CG
``..Well now this is what the US objects to, is fearful of, will never agree to, etc., is it not? Oh the US delegates told me that in New York. They are still fighting the Cold War. I made the point that 80% of the 600 million disabled persons worldwide live in poor nations. Nondiscrimination rights are useless to them if they cannot survive in the first place...'' Marta Russell
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Yes---I know and I think we thoroughly agree. I understand that US officials would object---which is specifically why I put it in there. This whole line of reasoning (material security of the person) is embedded in the Rights of the Child under the rational of minors as a protected class. But it needs to be extended to include all classes of persons, not just those of a protected or dependent status under a sovereign power.
To the argument that disabled people should not be a dependent class, I agree, but would point out that all people pass from social and material dependent as children to independence as adults and then back again to dependence in age---the riddle of the Sphinx to Oedipus. So, in effect social and material dependence and independence are ambivalent constructs. In economic terms, we are all dependent on the regulatory power of the state to define the conditions of ownership of production, employment and wages. Since the state defines as well as regulates the means and conditions of economic and material security, the state is also responsible for providing these means to all its people.
Also in the Rights of the Child there is a statement to the effect that a child has the right to his or her language and culture---which can be very easily re-worked to encompass various deaf and blind issues. This idea of a right to a self-identified social and cultural heritage also covers many groups who have been suppressed within the quasi-artificial framework of the national state---US Native Americans for example. On the down side, it also provides a justification for rightwing ethnic and religious groups to run amok and raise havoc with secular authority.
In any event, the US objects to the concept of material security and well being for protected classes, so naturally they have no intention of extending such egregious entitlements to a broader class of persons. But then, the US has no intention of signing a treaty on disability rights, much less ratifying it anyway, so...
I am not sure it is worth trying to find a compromise for the expediency of the US imprinture. Of course there will be the usual political argument that something is better than nothing.
Personally, I would hold out for the best document against the pressure to sign whatever the US will sign. Here are two reasons.
First of all this is a general statement of principles. Human rights are supposed to be principles that express the greatest common factors of unity in the human condition. They are not an expression of the lowest common denominator of what is merely survivable by a lucky few.
And second, the Bush administration and its government are currently losing power to compel international agencies and forums to follow their policies, so holding out now for a better version seems to me to be a realistic, rather than an unreasonable and idealistic alternative.
Anyway, I am glad you are involved in this. If you find any of this useful, please do forward it. I am afraid that many of the people I know and used to work with are much more likely to support a lesser document, rather than a greater one. They are too used to making practical compromises with reluctant US administrations. And even those compromises were whittled away under the SC. So, since that has been the movement history, it seems best to start higher so there is more to whittle away later.
Chuck Grime