The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is the UN body which governs the exchange of post at international level. The World Blind Union is a member of the UPU's Consultative Committee. Through this forum, we are calling for the modernisation of the rules on the free postal service for blind and partially sighted people which appear in the UPU's Convention. We are asking for the exemption to explicitly cover the mailing of items such as white canes, computer disks and so on. At present the text refers vaguely to "literature".
As often at international level, campaigns move slowly. We worked intensively with the World Blind Union and many postal operators from across the world, to try to gain agreement for the implementation of these changes to the Convention at the UPU Congress, which took place in July 2008 in Geneva. P&T Luxembourg tabled a proposal to this effect. However, the Congress committee which examined the Luxembourg proposal voted to refer it to the UPU's "Council of Administration" (CA) for "further studies". Though we were disappointed with this decision, we will continue our work with the UPU until we have achieved the modernisation of the rules that we are seeking. The CA meets at the UPU's headquarters in Berne, Switzerland, in the autumn of 2009, and we will attend this meeting to put our case.
EU "Right to read"/ Copyright campaign
The focus of our work here is to work with the publishing industry, our partner organisations and the European Commission to ensure that more books are published in formats that can be read by blind and partially sighted people such as large print, audio and braille.
We lead the European Blind Union's Copyright Working Group, to ensure that EU rules on copyright have sufficient flexibility so as not to stop blind and partially sighted people from making and obtaining accessible books and electronic information.
Get involved!
Would you like to campaign on European issues? If you are interested in how the EU affects you and your day to day life, contact the Campaigns team at campaign@rnib.org.uk or through the campaigns hotline on 020 7391 2123.
More information on the Right to Read Campaign