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Disability Rights Rally Urges Latvia to Sign Disability Rights Treaty
By Andrea Shettle, MSW | June 19, 2008
About 100 people gathered recently in a rally to urge Latvia to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Baltic Times has reported (article entitled "Time to Rally").
The CRPD is the first international, legally binding treaty on the human rights of people with disabilities. It protects a wide range of human rights such as the right to live in the community (not an institution); the right to make decisions about one’s own medical care; the right to sign contracts and own property; the right to have access to education, health care, transportation, and other public accommodations; and many more.
A country must ratify the CRPD before it is legally bound to obey it. Signing the CRPD is the first step toward ratification: it obligates the country to avoid violating the treaty, but does not obligate the country to obey it. So far, 27 countries have ratified the CRPD, and another 102 countries have signed it. Unlike the other members of the European Union, Latvia has not yet signed or ratified the CRPD.
Read the Baltic Times story on the rally in Latvia at http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20580/
Learn more about the CRPD and how it is meant to help people with disabilities all around the world by reviewing the <a href="http://ratifynow.org/ratifynow-faq/">RatifyNow FAQ on the CRPD</a>.
<a href="http://ratifynow.org/get-involved/">Become involved with the global campaign to persuade more countries to sign, ratify, and implement the CRPD</a>.
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