Testimony on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Corker, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to present my views on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I appreciate the hopes some of my fellow veterans have for this treaty. I am one of many veterans who do not share that optimism, and like AMVETS, realize that ratifying this treaty will not help disabled Americans here or abroad.

This treaty is meant to help other nations raise their standards to those of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Secretary of State Kerry addressed leaders at the UN High Level Summit on Disabilities a few weeks ago, reminding them that “in too many countries…we still see the rights and the dignity that we take for granted are not existent in many of those places.” Yet experience demonstrates that other governments comply with, or shirk, their treaty obligations independent of whether or not we bind ourselves to them…