The UN Convention and WSIS Implementation: Achieving Inclusive Information Society through Disability-specific Mandate and Disability-inclusive Development Process

By Monthian Buntan
President, Thailand Association of the Blind

Delivered at Accessibility standards development and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
November 12, 2007 at Windsor Barra Hotel, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Formulation of Thoughts and Concepts

It is indisputable that information and knowledge is the prime source of power, and power is what we need in order to survive and live full life and with human dignity. Therefore, access to information must, therefore, be guaranteed as human right and fundamental freedom for all. Accessibility for persons with disabilities means the ability to access at the same time, same place and without additional cost. These two sentences served as our prime source to formulate our thoughts which turned into a policy recommendations when a handful number of us met in June 2002 in Bangkok for the Regional Seminar on ICT Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities, hosted by DAISY Consortium, UNESCAP, Thai GOs and NGOs.

Taking such Concepts around the Globe

Toward the end of 2002, our recommendations were integrated into a regional development framework (Biwako Millennium Framework for Action) near Lake Biwa, Shiga, Japan, paving the way for us to introduce our even cclear core statement (achieving accessible/inclusive information society &universal design and assistive technologies) to the first-ever mainstream summit (The World Summit on Information Society, WSIS), both during first phase in Geneva and second phase in Tunis. (see from the World Summit on Information society at www.itu.int/wsis)

Moving the Vehicle with Good Driver

Being included in the mainstreaming world summit document is like being ina good vehicle. However, this vehicle needs a good engine, with enough fuel and, most of all, a good driver. We then took it further to make our concepts clearly defined in a legally-binding document which we did successfully did so in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

What Makes this Convention a Three-in-one Solution?

• Enjoyed the status of being the first international human rights law of the twenty-first century;
• Contains both social development and human rights aspects;
• Took only five years to be drafted, negotiated and adopted;
• Allowed greatest-ever pparticipation by civil society organizations, especially organizations of PWDs, in the UN process and, significantly,
• Enjoyed open participation/lobbying from grassroots level around the world through the internet.

How is the Convention related to WSIS Implementation?

• Putting "accessibility" as one of the most significant component
  • Paragraph V of the Preamble,
  • Item F of Article 3 on General Principles,
  • Paragraph 2 of Article 4 on General State Obligations,
  • Entire Article 9 on ";Access" in general,
  • Entire Article 21 on access to information,
  • Paragraph 3 and 4 of Article 24 on Education (with special reference to braille and sign language),
  • Subparagraph I of Paragraph A of Article 29 on Political Right,
  • Article 30 on Cultural Right (with special reference to access to cultural materials),
  • Paragraph D of Article 32 on International Co-operation,
• Clearly defines several related terminologies for ppractical usage and common understanding
  • Communication,
  • Language,
  • Reasonable accommodation,
  • Universal design
• Being the first-ever UN legal document which requires that the text of this convention and its optional protocol be made available in accessible formats (see Article 49 of the convention and Article 17 of the optional protocol).

Taking Realistic Approach to Meet the Ideal Concept

Achieving accessible/inclusive information society, through universal design and the use of assistive technologies or through provision, as defined and madated by the UN convention, still requires further clarification and simplification to make such ideal goal more achievable or even perceivable. What we have been suggesting, since Bangkok recommendation to the UN convention, is that some kind of international accessibility standards, which are open and non-propriatary, must be developed, well-recognized and followed. When it comes to the internet, being so significant to the lives of more and more people with or without disabilities, internationally recognized accessibility standards are badly needed

Exploring Current Internationally-recognized Accessibility Standards

Among accessibility standards, which have emerged to become internationally-recognized, there are two of those which have been outstandingly shown to be open and non-propriatary:

• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and
• Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY), which is specification standard for digital talking book, developed and maintained by DAISY Consortium).

Toward Synchronized Multimedia Accessibility Standard

Although these two current standards have served us quite well to some extent to make information society more accessible, they have not yet been able to address concerns by many disability groups. For example, web accessibility guideline has been viewed as being too text-centric while the latest DAISY standard can only accommodate audio (its originally targetted media), text and static graphics. Taking these two standards further toward becoming a synchronized multimedia accessibility standard, which supports motion picture, other different means and modes of communication, should be of great benefit to all of us with or without disabilities, with or without written scrippts, etc.

Synchronized Multimedia Accessibility Standard and the Internet

It is my strong belief that the synchronized multimedia accessibility standard, which is internationally developed, recognized and followed, is one of the great challenges for us to achieve in order to ensure that dynamic and fast growing internet community will not single out disability communities. With such standard, we can ensure that internet telephony, internet broadcasting and the world wide web will find common direction if the universal design concept is to be practically followed and if assistive technology development is to be less fragmented so as to produce more tangible outcome.

Conclusion

In the process of WSIS implementation, internet accessibility should be treated as a core component of the internet governance. Such development should be rights-based according to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which clearly defines and mandates the use of universal design, assistive technologies and reasonable accommodation. Through open participation and contribution by all stakeholders including persons with disabilities, especially in this Internet Governance Forum , we, I believe, can definitely achieve accessible/inclusive information society.