E-Access Bulletin Live

After what will have been five years of negotiations, an international treaty to allow the sharing of accessible copyrighted material across borders for use by blind and visually impaired people could finally be signed in 2013, E-Access Bulletin has learned.

A “roadmap” for formalising a treaty, which would increase book access for disabled people including blind and visually impaired people, has finally been approved at this month’s World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) general assembly in Geneva ( bit.ly/OqkKxp ).

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Diane Mulligan OBE, one of the UK’s leading national and international disability rights campaigners and advisors, has been elected to the United Nations Expert Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The committee, of 18 independent experts, monitors implementation of the convention by “states parties” – countries who have signed up to it. Its work includes assessing individual country’s reports on how they have implemented the measures of the convention, taking into account what improvements have been made and difficulties faced since the last report.

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The long legal battle between Donna Jodhan, a blind accessibility advocate from Canada, over the inaccessibility of government websites – as chronicled by E-Access Bulletin over several years – is over. With the Canadian government having now taken satisfactory remedial action, Jodhan has decided not to take any further legal action, declaring her victory “an opportunity to create a more accessible environment for all Canadians”.

Jodhan first noticed that she was unable to use government websites due to her impairment in 2006. She sued, with a judge initially ruling in her favour, stating that the Government had infringed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and giving a time period for the government to make its websites accessible to blind and visually impaired users. The government appealed this decision in 2011, but in May 2012 the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal upheld Jodhan’s initial victory (see E-Access Bulletin issue 138: bit.ly/QHacrm ).

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By Tristan Parker

Co-founder and co-editor of the online disability lifestyle magazine Disability Horizons, Martyn Sibley has become an influential voice in the disability community. A keen technology user and advocate, Martyn has run his own social media consultancy, is a frequent blogger, and has developed a number of e-learning and e- campaigning projects alongside his journalism. Here, he talks to E-Access Bulletin about the opportunities new technologies have given him over the years.

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