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Dear Colleague,
You are invited to send comments on a draft United Nations convention on
disability as input to a major expert group meeting.
The Government of Mexico and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America
are organizing an Expert Meeting on the Comprehensive and Integral International
Convention to Promote and Protect the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities
in Mexico City from 11-14 June 2002. The meeting website can be found at http://www.sre.gob.mx/discapacidad/. The
Expert meeting will provide input into the intergovernmental consultation on the
convention that will start in New York on 29 July 2002 as requested by General Assembly
resolution 56/168.
WorldEnable has been requested by the organizers of the expert meeting to facilitate an
innovative effort through the Internet to channel input from the community of persons and
groups concerned with the rights of persons with disabilities into the Expert Meeting. We
will present a consolidated paper on inputs received about the draft convention that can
be presented to the experts as part of their deliberations.
The Expert Meeting will examine a proposal on Elements for a United Nations
Comprehensive and Integral International Convention to Promote and Protect the Rights and
Dignity of Persons with Disabilities (http://www.sre.gob.mx/discapacidad/elements.htm)
If you would like to comment on the draft elements, you should send specific suggestions
for textual changes or additions as soon as possible to mathiason@intlmgt.com.
To help put this in context, we have prepared a short note on some considerations that
might be taken into account in drafting the convention. It is found at http://www.worldenable.net/mexico2002/considerations.htm.
To facilitate communication, we have also established a list-serve at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conventionondisability/.
If you join this group you can exchange information and suggestions with other persons
that would like to make an input to the expert meeting. We will be moderating the group
and will also incorporate comments made in it when we prepare our summary input to the
expert meeting.
Finally, we will moderate an on-line chat on Thursday, June 6, 2002 at 10 a.m. EDT
(14:00 GMT). The chat will be in #UNAccess on galaxy.net. For
instructions on how to access the chatroom, please consult http://www.worldenable.net next week.
For those who cannot make a contribution in advance of the expert meeting, we will hold
a second round of consultations based on the report of the expert meeting with a view to
providing comments that can be presented to the intergovernmental consultation at the end
of July.
The process of preparing an international convention on disability is moving much more
quickly than most of us could imagine. Time is very short, but this is something that we
have all been thinking about for some time. The new technology of the Internet gives us a
means for making our voices heard, even when time is short. If we can make clear, sharp
and specific textual proposals to the expert meeting, we can help shape the convention. I
encourage you to take the time to make your input and I promise to convey it to the expert
meeting on your behalf.
Sincerely yours,
María Cristina Sará-Serrano
President
AIMS
(former representative of Disabled People's International to the United Nations,
1987-1999)
P.S. Please forward this to anyone that you feel would be interested in participating.
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