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Dear Maria Cristina:
Those of us pleasured to come to know you on the Internet and who value the Internet highly - nonethless could not be more thrilled than we are to have met you personally at the UN. I will never forget this. I am so happy.
We need you so much in these processes. Your 'grace in balance' is superb and I come to you now on one matter for your unique blend of heart and mind.
Please Maria Cristina do what you can and all here to keep 'the medical side of things' alive where needed. I do read so much on getting rid of the medical model to the point where there is even writing on 'getting rid of medical care' language.
There are great swings in history and the grand RHETORICS (in the good sense of great goal oriented discourse), the ultimate balancing swings e.g. from classic to romantic and back and forth ... the cross-culture, enduring, broad and grand dialectics of "thesis, antithesis and synthesis" ... but too many of our acquaintance are quite literally failing under all too weak access to life sustaining medications, physically rehabilitative services, even medically related transportation. Among friends in good stead who are adamantly challenging unjust and injurious incursions into, for example, psychiatric domains of ill-fit or non productive or invalidly mapped or otherwise importune paradigms, occasions for personal discussion do evoke keen compassion for the medically stranded in society. But in print one does read calls for abandonment of medical care approaches.
One hopes for mergers - not zero sum (x wins, y loses) winner-take-all sacrifices of one human population for another for the sake of one paradigm for another. While my description may be weak, your fortitude to balance values we know is not, and we need your help here. Hence, I bring these issues to your consideration as peace maker, not to add to your considerable workload. Our respect for your work on the Standard Rules and your other pioneering work in advance of all the fine progress currently and the ever developing challenges escapes my ability to paraphrase, so please correct and edit one and all.
I pen the above simply to thank Maria Cristina and John for the wonderful visit just prior, and for this list, and for all of the great networking to come, just begun.
Wishing all a fine Sunday and coming week,
:) Linda.
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L. D. Misek-Falkoff. Ph.D., J.D..
L. D. Misek-Falkoff. Ph.D., J.D..
Personal Disabilities of Trigeminal Neuralgia, Orthopedic, Arthritis, Peripheral Neuropathy, Other.
-Speaker of The National Disability Party.
-Speaker of The National Disability Party.
-Chronic Pain Caucus Chair
-Asst. Managing Editor The Disability Grapevine Daily Online Newsletter.
http://www.disabilitygrapevine.com http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/disabilityparty
-Asst. Managing Editor The Disability Grapevine Daily Online Newsletter.
http://www.disabilitygrapevine.com http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/disabilityparty
Members both National and International
----- Original Message -----
To: Roseangela Berman-Bieler ; Bob Metts ; Markus Sudibyo ; Ron Dudley Chandran ; Joshua Malinga ; Rachel Hurst ; Khalfan Khalafan ; Topong Kulkhanchit ; Kicki Nordstrom ; Justine Kiwanuka ; Santiago Velazquez Duarte ; Anneli Joneken ; Leo Valdes ; Kalle Konkkola ; Tomas Lagerwall ; info@... ; moira@... ; DisabilityConvention@yahoogroups.com ; conventionondisability@yahoogroups.com ; Scott Brown ; DisabilityConvention@yahoogroups.com ; conventionondisability@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 11:04 AM
Subject: [DisabilityConvention] Presentation of comments to the Ad Hoc Committee
on-line consultation to a meeting of NGOs and Government delegates. The
comments on the Mexican proposal that is now officially Working Paper 1 of
the Ad Hoc Committee will be posted shortly. Here is my introductory
statement:
Dear colleagues,
I am very happy to be with you again after a number of years. One of the
consequences of my disability has been a reduced capacity to travel and I
have missed being physically present at many events. I have, however, been
able to travel to many of them virtually, through the Internet. But this
first meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee is so important that I decided to make
the effort to leave my house in the mountains and come to the UN again.
Ten years ago, when we were negotiating the Standard Rules as an alternative
to a UN Convention, we didnąt dream that a Convention would be possible!
The fact that States are beginning to create one shows, I think, the value
of our work. I think it means that the work of all of the organizations, of
Bengt Lindquist and of the UN Secretariat has born fruit.
I have become involved because as part of the preparations for the Expert
Meeting in June, the organizers felt that the kind of on-line consultation
that we have been using to provide training in the Standard Rules could help
provide input into the proceedings. The Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean has engaged me to continue the consultation as
follow-up. Many of you here, as well as many in other countries,have made
contributions.
I am here today to present the results of this consultation. It is
summarized in a paper with specific comments on Working Paper 1. As you
probably notice, another consequence of my disability is that I have
difficulties speaking loudly or long. This may be blessing.
However, I would like to make a couple of points that I think are important.
First is the issue of the relationship between the proposed convention and
the other parts of the human rights regime. There is no question that
persons with disabilities have all of the rights guaranteed by the human
rights conventions on the same basis as everyone else. If those treaties
had led to the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities
we would not need a convention. But they havenąt. We can all agree on
that.
We are in the same situation that women were before CEDAW. Discrimination on
the basis of sex is specifically prohibited in Article 3 of both Covenants.
And if women achieved equal rights, there would have been no need for CEDAW.
But they didnąt and CEDAW was needed.
The issue in both cases is the same: a group of people had rights, but
couldnąt exercise them on a basis of equality. What were missing were clear
obligations to States to address those things that were preventing people
from being able to exercise their rights.
A convention will have to remedy this lack of obligation. Thus, the
disability convention will be a human rights convention, but it will also be
a convention that talks to norms, policies, laws and practices in the
economic, social and cultural areas.
My second point is that we must be very clear about who will be covered by
the Convention. We know who persons with disabilities are, but governments
donąt necessarily know. If the definition of who is covered is too narrow,
many will be excluded from its provisions. If it is drawn too generally, it
will allow states to escape their obligations by saying that disability has
been łmainstreamed˛. As you know, the on-line consultation has had a lively
discussion of this problem.
My third point is that NGOs can make an impact on the convention (and
already have), but that the impact is greatest at the outset, before texts
are written in stone. That is why there should be input in this first
session and between this and the next.
There are many other comments, but you can see them in the paper.
Thank you.
Maria Cristina
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