For Inclusion Ireland, the recent Dáil motion permitting the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) brought to a head a campaign that has run since 2007. This moment is not before time and it has been a source of international embarrassment for Ireland that it was the only European Union country to have failed to ratify.
Over the coming days, the Minister for Foreign Affairs will travel to New York to deposit the ratification instrument and 30 days after that, the UNCRPD will be deemed ratified and Ireland will join the 176 other EU member states who have already ratified the Convention.
The imminent ratification represents an historic, albeit bittersweet, moment coming as it does after an 11-year wait and with a number of declarations and reservations attached. Also, the decision to renege on the commitment to ratify the Optional Protocol has left many activists frustrated and angry.
Since 2007, successive Governments have failed to ratify while stating that our domestic laws need to be altered for Ireland to comply with the Convention. The decision to ratify now while those domestic laws remain in breach of the Convention begs the question of why didn’t we ratify a decade ago and then reform the laws.
For campaigners and advocates, thoughts must now turn to how the Convention can be used to promote human rights and secure equality for disabled people. The Convention doesn’t create new rights as the rights articulated in the UNCRPD such as the right to equal recognition, non-discrimination, privacy education, health, education, liberty and participation in cultural life are all present in other human rights instruments. The Convention does however, recognise that society puts specific barriers in the way of persons with disabilities enjoying human rights and it challenges us to think of ways to dismantle those barriers.
There is significant potential for the Convention to be used as a legal tool, Irish Courts have already held, prior to ratification, that our personal capacity rights arising from Bunreacht na hEireann are informed by the UNCRPD. There is also huge potential for the Convention to be used as an advocacy tool, to change public policy and hold policy makers and legislators to the high standards in the Convention.
As already mentioned, Ireland will enter several declarations and reservations to the Convention, some in the area of legal capacity and others surrounding employment in certain areas such as the armed forces or Gardai. Ireland has also declined to ratify the Optional Protocol which is disappointing to those of us who hold the UNCRPD to be an instrument that requires complete implementation.
The failure to ratify the Optional Protocol comes despite a commitment from Minister for Disabilities in December 2016 that the protocol would be ratified at the same time as the Convention itself. The Optional Protocol provides a route for individuals or groups to communicate with the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities if they feel their rights under the Convention are being violated. If the Committee feels that there is a case to be answered, they can examine the State and issue findings, comments and recommendations.
The Optional Protocol was used to good effect recently in the UK where the Committee found that cuts to welfare and social care were in breach of the UNCRPD and concluded that the UK government was guilty of “grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities” and that cuts had created a “human catastrophe” for disabled people.
As we are shortly to ratify the Convention, all minds will turn to monitoring the Irish performance. Article 33 of the UNCRPD sets out the monitoring procedure and Ireland proposes to use the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission as a monitoring body, assisted by the National Disability Authority and supported by an advisory committee comprised of persons with disabilities.
This advisory committee has the potential to be very influential in assessing how Ireland is faring with compliance with the Convention. Inclusion Ireland has called for that advisory committee to be supported, financed and facilitated to ensure that it is fully representative of disabled people and that their participation is meaningful. If we are serious in our efforts to ensure that the Convention has an impact on the real lives of disabled people then hearing the voices of those living with disability is crucial.
There will be an important role for civil society in monitoring the Convention in preparing alternative (or shadow) reports to the official country report and there will be an opportunity for the voices of disabled people to be heard clearly in these reports.
In the coming years as Ireland is examined by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and assessed for its performance, we will get a clear picture of what life is like for disabled people in Ireland. Ireland has joined a network of 176 other States across the globe who can share their experience and we can learn from other countries who have operated under the Convention for more than a decade.
It is certain that the ratification of the UNCRPD will represent an historic day for Ireland, but what is equally clear is that it represents what is merely a first step in making sure that the rights of people with disabilities are vindicated. For Inclusion Ireland, the next battle is to ensure that Ireland continues to reform the laws and policies that is required to comply with the UNCRPD.