The convention is designed to expand community access and improve the standard of living for the estimated 650 million people around the world with disabilities. It is the first new human rights convention this century.

President Barack Obama officially sent the treaty to the Senate Thursday and asked lawmakers to ratify it.

“The rights of Americans with disabilities should not end at our nation’s shores,” Obama wrote in his request to the Senate. “Ratification of the disabilities convention by the United States would position the United States to occupy the global leadership role to which our domestic record already attests.”

...U.N. is expected to establish a committee in September to oversee the convention. If Senate approval does not occur before that time, the U.S. would not be eligible to join the inaugural leadership team.

“We would lose a huge opportunity to influence the committee,” said Jennifer Dexter, assistant vice president of government relations at Easter Seals.