A new treaty on the rights of the disabled requires a strong common EU position, and this State needs to prove its commitment, writes Gerard Quinn
It was recently reported in The Irish Times (Monday, April 7th) that the Department of Justice is opposed to Irish participation in the drafting of a new treaty on the rights of persons with disabilities and is furthermore impeding the emergence of a strong EU common position.
A further piece in Thursday's edition (April 10th) seems to indicate a slight relaxation of this opposition. Yesterday's column by Fintan O'Toole (April 14th) challenges the moral authority and political wisdom behind this opposition.
A formal hearing on the proposed treaty is due to take place in the Sub-Committee on Human Rights of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Oireachtas on Thursday, April 24th, at 10 a.m.
Let there be no doubt, opposition to this treaty-drafting process would not only be a great shame for Ireland but also a tragedy for the developing world. All the more so since Ireland was one of the leading proponents of such a treaty until recently.
There are over 600 million people with disabilities in the world. At least 500 million of them live in dire circumstances in developing countries. If the EU is impeded from adopting a strong common position then there is every chance that the negotiations on the treaty will collapse this summer while the Special Olympics are under way.
At present it appears that Ireland is the only country holding back the EU 15. Ireland should not merely allow the process forward, it should try to actively regain the high ground it once occupied in this field.
Why the intransigence? Is it because this is the latest liberal fad? Actually, the debate about a treaty is not new. As far back as 1987 a high-level group advised the UN that there was a pressing need to draft a new thematic human rights treaty on disability.
Such treaties are not generally drafted because new human rights issues emerge.
They are drafted because a consensus emerges between states that the two general treaties on human rights in the UN system (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)) cannot, without further fine-tuning, reach all the issues that are relevant to particularly vulnerable groups.
At present there are three such thematic human rights treaties covering women (Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: CEDAW), children (Convention on the Rights of the Child: CRC) and racial minorities (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination: CERD).
Ireland has ratified all of these. So a new treaty on disability would be the fourth such instrument.
Indeed, such thematic treaties do not generally generate new law. They typically refine a state's existing obligations under either or both the ICCPR and the ICESCR. A good example - indeed a good model for the proposed disability treaty - is the CEDAW convention which gives clearer expression to the non-discrimination principle with respect to both sets of rights in the specific context of women.
The more recent history of the debate goes back to 2000 when, to its great credit, Ireland proposed in a resolution to the UN Commission for Human Rights that the UN should at last begin to seriously consider the adoption of such a thematic treaty in the context of disability.
At that time Ireland was apparently blocked by some of its EU partners, which is richly ironic since all 14 of our EU partners now seem to be on board. In the face of such opposition Ireland deleted the relevant paragraph but was determined to revisit the matter during the spring 2002 meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission.
It was decided that research was required to create a fresh political clearing for the initiative. But before that research was published in Geneva in February 2002 the government of Mexico (to its great credit) managed to get the UN General Assembly to start the process of considering proposals for a treaty.
As a result, a new ad-hoc committee of states met for the first time last summer in New York and is due to meet again in June.
The first session of the ad-hoc group achieved remarkable progress on procedural matters. States are now encouraged to include disabled persons on their delegations. NGOs - even NGOs in Kinvara - now have standing to attend. Human rights commissions including our own have been invited to participate. There is every likelihood that these bodies will be present in force in New York later in June.
However, the first session proved painfully inconclusive on the most crucial substantive point; namely whether states should now proceed to a formal drafting process. Clearly the next session will be make-or-break for the process.
The intransigence seems more ideologically inspired than rational. The main fear seems to be of enforceable socioeconomic rights. Yet such a new thematic treaty should not add much to existing international law on this point.
Could it be that existing international human rights law is itself found unacceptable? If so, it would be logical not merely to kill off this treaty-drafting process but also to begin backing away from the ICESCR as well as from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and CEDAW, since they, too, span socio-economic rights.
Indeed, one might even back away from the European Convention on Human Rights since the European Court in Strasbourg has made it plain on many occasions that some of the rights protected can give rise to positive state obligations and most famously so in its Airey judgment against Ireland. The very idea of such a withdrawal is politically absurd.
It is high time sound political sense prevails over ideology. The Government's White Paper on Foreign Policy (1996) states: "For Ireland, a commitment to human rights has always been a vital part of our expression of solidarity with the developing world". Prove it.