Law school symposium explores disability rights in Asia

As many as 400 million people with disabilities in Asia lack protective legislation. The Washington Law School Foundation hosted a two-day symposium last week that discussed disability rights in Asia. The event drew attention to legal and human rights issues.

The symposium, held Thursday and Friday in William H. Gates Hall, was the first academic conference of its kind on this budding issue.

Among the many distinguished guest speakers was former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who is the father of a disabled son. He urged the United States to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol.

“Ratification of the Disability Rights Convention is an opportunity to export to the world the very best we have to offer,” Thornburgh said. “This is a chance to use our rich national experience in disability rights — which has gained us the respect of the world community — to extend principles embodied in the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990] to the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide who, today, have no domestic protection.”

The U.N. convention supports human rights for people with all types of disabilities and maintains a broad definition of a disability, according to the U.N. Enable Web site.

The convention was adopted on Dec.13, 2006, and opened for signature on March 30, 2007, at which time 82 countries signed. To date, 127 countries have signed and 22 have ratified the convention. The United States has signed but not ratified the convention.

The symposium focused on disability rights in Asia to bring awareness of the number of disabled people and the growing elderly population in the region. In 2006, 400,000 people used wheelchair services at the Hong Kong International Airport, Thornburgh said.

Disability policy is changing at the UW as well. Eric Godfrey, vice provost for Student Life, put together the Disabilities Resources Review Group to investigate Disability Resource for Students (DRS) policies on how to improve services for students with disabilities.

“There hasn’t been a DRS review in over 10 years,” said Glory Auldon, director of Student Disabilities Commission (SDC). “We are getting too complacent with thinking we are doing a good job.”

Regarding the U.N. convention, Auldon noted a problematic aspect of disability policy that appears at the international level as well as at the UW.

“Across the world, there is this idea that someone else can decide what is best for someone with disabilities,” she said. “It is discrimination by ignoring their voice and is excluding the very population that you are going to be serving.”

As international and university policies change and evolve, the conversation about disabilities rights will continue.

“We’re never going to get to a point where we are not concerned [with disabilities rights],” she said. “There is a constant conversation of what disability is and what rights are.”