[games_access] games_access Digest, Vol 107, Issue 9

[Ian Hamilton]

It can & does make a difference. By ratifying the convention countries are agreeing to put appropriate laws into place, the UK is the place I know the most about so a little about it here - before ratification we had the DDA, which was pretty similar to the ADA.
After ratification this was replaced with the equalities act. Not only is it much wider in scope, it also extends to other areas of discrimination too - so the UNCPRD was the catalyst for greater legal protection for discrimination on the basis of not just disability, but also gender, age, pregnancy, sexual preference etc.
Full list: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/new-equality-act-guidance/protected-characteristics-definitions/
It has made differences in many ways. Just to give one tiny example, earlier this year a taxi driver's employers were prosecuted and fined because he refused to carry a guide dog in his vehicle. After that I saw a sign up on the wall of a taxi office, stating that any taxi driver who refused to carry a guide dog would be immediately sacked. Having legislation with teeth removes ambiguity and sends out a clear message on what is or is not socially and morally acceptable.
Even just in my day job I've seen an astronomical change in attitudes towards accessibility, with corporate legal departments insisting on high levels of web accessibility compliance, in turn leading to external agencies who just a couple of years ago either did not know or did not care about accessibility now performing detailed audits and doing what they can to learn more.
The reason for legal departments insisting on compliance is a really simple one, there have been high profile cases of businesses being threatened with legal action. They always settle out of court, but the message is still sent that it's simply not acceptable.
While legislation isn't appropriate for something like games where it's still in advocacy days, having a general level of public awareness about what is or isn't acceptable has a strong indirect effect.
And yes definitely while ratification on its own is just a signature on a piece of paper, what it does do is give campaigners and advocates something concrete to work from, a way to hold the government to account, making improved disability law a simple matter of keeping to their own promises and commitments. 'Give us the rights you already promised to us' is a bit of a different scale of an ask to 'give us rights'.
Ian
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 22:57:56 -0000
> From: "Barrie Ellis" <oneswitch at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [games_access] US Kills UN CRPD.... :( (Steve Spohn)
> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List"
> 	<games_access at igda.org>
> Message-ID: <2E16639133CE4D80BD53E54E214530D4 at OneSwitchPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> True. But we carry on.
> 
> 
> From: Michelle Hinn 
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 10:39 PM
> To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: [games_access] US Kills UN CRPD.... :( (Steve Spohn)
> 
> 
> Yeah unless each country commits to adopting the ideas in their own
> countries...in the end, signing it doesn't do much good. But we have a
> lot of people in the US who think that anything to do with the UN will
> turn the country into a "socialist nightmare" even if it can't do
> anything to directly change anything so they won't even commit to the
> idea of a world that is more accessible...
> 
> Sad...so much to fight for still...so much...
> 
> Michelle
> 
> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Sandra Uhling <sandra_uhling at web.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Unfortunately it does not help much to have the CRPD.
> > The truth is not changed .... You can see it in Germany .....
> >
> > Very very bad .... only few changes, .....
> >

 		 	   		  
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