Why the United States has not signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

¶ … U.S. has not Signed the U.N. Convention Treaty on the Rights of Children

This paper presents a detailed examination of the Treaty on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children. The writer explores the treaty and the nations that have signed it. The writer than delves into some of the reasons the United States has not signed it. This paper is written from a legal standpoint therefore there are discussions about jurisdictional issues as well as other legal points of interest. There were five sources used to complete this paper.

Why the U.S. hasn't signed the U.N. Convention treaty on the Rights of the Child

Worldwide globalization efforts are moving forward in almost all aspects of society. There are better communications abilities; more integrated business dealings and nations are beginning to embrace the traditions and cultures of those across the ocean. As the walls of difference come down the world has been able to observe the way each nation treats and reacts to children. Living in America, people often get a false sense of security when it comes to the treatment of children. If one abuses a child, one stands a chance of going to jail. Children in America are protected from having to work at a young age and they are provided with a government sanctioned, mandated and uniform education. While America might not be the perfect village for the raising of its children it does provide for and try to protect them from harm. When one lives in the states it might be hard for them to imagine that children everywhere are not afforded the same protection and rights that they are in the U.S. Children in other nations are often brutalized, taken advantage of and neglected. It is not always as obvious as the Feed The Children commercials on television. There are times it is insidious, generational and deliberate. The United Nations works with hundreds of nations to standardize and ratify the human treatment of the residents of its members. While each nation is encouraged to preserve its cultural traditions and national "DNA," the United Nations does expect that all of its members will treat their most priceless commodity, their children with compassion and decency. The ever improving ability to communicate has brought to light some very disturbing allegations about the way children are being treated in some nations. The United Nations treaty on the Convention on the Rights of Children was developed as a tool to provide a standard and team approach to children world wide. To the surprise of many powerful nations worldwide the United States has steadfastedly refused to add its signature to the treaty. This has presented some concern to worldwide historians and experts as the United States is commonly looked to as a role model for other nations to follow. The United States is one of only two nations world wide which makes its refusal to sign even more curious. While the United Nations continues to encourage the United States to sign the treaty there are several reasons that the U.S. has thus far refused to do so. The treaty makes sense, it protects children world wide and it allows for the continued respect of parental rights. It is time for the United States to rethink its refusal. The reasons are valid and the signature on the treaty might impede the nation's efforts to improve conditions for children around the globe.

WHAT IS IT

Before one can begin to make an informed decision about the U.S. refusal to sign the treaty it is important to understand the treaty and its purpose and content. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was designed by the United Nations as the first legally binding instrument that is meant to incorporate human rights. The design works to incorporate human rights in a broad-based range that include many areas including economics, political rights, social rights and cultural rights. After the Convention was developed two additions called optional protocols were added. These dealt with child pornography or prostitution, and the sale of children or the use of children in armed conflict. The Convention views children as individuals and as such believes that each child is afforded human decency and full rights as to the way they will be treated. The Convention does not recognize children as objects, property or owned by their parents. While the Convention does not believe that children are property it does mandate that each state that signs their agreement with it, recognize parental rights to raise their children as they see fit as long as abuse and neglect are not part of the picture.

WHY IS TREATY NEEDED (Winfield, 1999)

The treaty has a strong base of support. It standardizes the treatment of children worldwide and provide guidelines for each singing member to develop rules and laws to follow regarding the treatment of children.

Until the Convention there has not been a standardized plan of action for the treatment of children. Each nation made its own decisions. This meant that in some nations children were treated as children and cherished as the future of the nation, while in other nations they were treated ads labor robots. Child abuse was not illegal in some nations while in others it was. It became an interesting bone of contention for many who are members of the UN because the UN does decide how war participants will treat each other. There are rules of conduct for war, and prisoners of war, but there was not standard conduct guidance in the treatment of the world's most precious commodity, children.

In addition the time has come to standardize the treatment of children because of the globalization that has been occurring worldwide for the past decade. With the barriers between nations coming down and people becoming more mobile than ever before children are moving about the globe with parents who are transferred and conducting business.

Children neither start wars nor perpetrate them. They should not pay the price for adults' wars," said the deputy British Ambassador Stuart Eldon in announcing more than a half million dollars to support U.N. projects for children affected by wars. U.N. figures show more than 300,000 children under 18 are known to be currently under arms around the world, in places such as Sudan, Colombia, Angola, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. In most of these countries, children under 15 -- and even as young as seven or eight -- have reportedly been taking part in armed conflicts.In the last decade, 2 million children have been killed, 1 million orphaned, 6 million seriously injured or disabled and 12 million made homeless because of war. "

WHY WON't THE U.S. SIGN? (Sign, 1999)

For the last ten years the United States has refused to sign the Convention treaty. At first glance many blame former president Clinton for not presenting it to Congress, however he may have had good reason. The Foreign Relations Committee took the stance that signing it would prove incompatible with the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit. According to experts the treaty has spurned many of the 191 signed nations to pass new laws regarding the treatment of children. The treaty dictates the respect of the parental rights but the U.S. foreign committee believed it was an unnecessary document.

REASONS FOR SIGNING THE TREATY

There are many good reasons for the U.S. To sign the treaty. One of the concerns those who are against the treaty bring forth is the chance for the treaty to override the U.S. laws. This cannot happen as the law in the United States will superscede any treaty law, by-law or amendment. The treaty signing will simply be a public and worldwide show of support for the humane treament of children. The treaty asks for nothing that the states are not already providing for its children. While many other nations are not treating their children with the dignities mandated in the treaty, there is nothing written into the treaty that would change the way the United States is already treating children. Children are not allowed to fight in combat in the treaty, but in the United States that is already the law. Children are not allowed to be put to work in the treaty, and in the U.S. that is already restricted. The treaty calls for efforts to be made not only by the parents but also for the governments to provide food, warmth and shelter for its children. The United States has a welfare system in place that does exactly that already. From a legal standpoint there may be concerns about the treaty that have not been addressed, but the important thing to remember is that the United States laws would and will supersceed any text or mandate within the treaty.

Another concern the U.S. has about signing the treaty is that if it signs the treaty and then treaty gets changed in ways the United States does not approve it will be bound by those rules. This is not the case, as the U.S. will always have the right to remove its support of the treaty.

The treaty protects children legally from many things that the U.S. laws already address. The U.S. should sign the treaty not so much to change or affect its treatment of children but to lend its support and voice for the change of treatment in some of the other nations. The treaty has already prompted legal changes in several countries regarding the mandates that are in the treaty. "The Philippines enacted laws shielding children from sexual exploitation. Sri Lanka raised the age of sexual consent from 12 to 16. India and South Africa have invoked the convention in court decisions involving the welfare of children. A number of countries have raised the minimum age for military recruitment. And in many war-plagued nations, the convention has prompted "Days of Tranquillity' ' - cease-fires called just to enable mass immunizations of children."

The very essence of an international treaty is the focus of this one. It is designed to draw worldwide attention to something that is wrong in the world and fix it. The treaty from a legal standpoint only has as much clout or power as the members want to give it, and it serves more as a statement than any kind of enforceable law.

While the U.S. has been refusing to sign the line for a decade it has been building a case for its refusal in the treaty's apparent inability to mend the ill ways of those who already signed. There are still millions of children starving to death and there are still children who are being caught up in the ravages of war while their own governments proudly wave their signed treaty copy to the world. The U.S. has concerns about the enforceability of such a treaty when it has witnessed ten years of non-compliance worldwide. While this is a good point for the U.S. refusal to sign the treaty it also provides a security backdrop from a lega standpoint to the U.S. that if it signs the treaty it will not be dictated to by the treaty unless it chooses to allow that to happen.

In too many places, children are still hungry, illiterate and alone. They suffer violence. They are pressed into military service, or sexual service, or hard labor. They spend their childhoods caught in the cross-fire of war, locked up in adult prisons, stuck in filthy orphanages or scavenging on the street. More of these wrongs could be made right, and made right more quickly, if only the United States seemed to care. As UNICEF's Bellamy says, "This is a world where everybody watches what the U.S. does.' ' (Dennis, 1997)

There are people in the states who believe the treaty tries to ursurp local authority. These questions have been raised many times:

The convention usurps national and state sovereignty and gives it to the United Nations." Wrong. The treaty contains no mandates. It can be implemented only through legislation enacted by Congress or state legislatures.

The convention undermines parental authority." Wrong. The treaty contains no such language. But it is replete with provisions emphasizing the importance of the family.

The convention would allow and encourage children to sue parents and have abortions and would prohibit capital punishment." The treaty says nothing about suing parents; all it says is that there must be some mechanism for hearing children's grievances.

There are many things that the treaty has remained neutral on. One of those topics is abortion. The treaty does not address the issue of abortion which. There has been speculation that it remains neutral on this and other topics that might prevent nations from signing because it was offended by the stance on the topic. If the treaty came down as pro-choice then many of the heavily Catholic and other religious nations might refuse to sign it. If it came down as pro-life then other nations who believe in the right to choose might refuse to sign. In addition, worldwide changes on the laws of abortions change and that would make the treaty unenforceable or something the nation no longer wanted to support.

One legal problem that might conflict with the U.S. And the treaty if the U.S. signed the treaty is the treaty's mandate that children never be executed. The United States does not promote the execution of minors however it has executed minors when the crimes were especially horrific. The recent Washington sniper who is 17-years-old is a classic example of how the treaty might clash with American law. The United States law provides for the trying of a minor as an adult if the crime was one of a capital nature. The treaty would object to the death penalty regardless of how horrific the crime the child committed was.

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The convention does prohibit the capital punishment of children. But when this issue arose in 1992 in connection with the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Bush administration expressed its reservations on this particular point and ratified the rest of the covenant. The same alternative is available in adopting the convention.

The political truth is that anti-U.N. groups are using the convention as a whipping boy.

In May, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., wrote Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and requested the State Department's priorities for the ratification of treaties." I hope you will not request Senate advice and consent on this treaty, " he wrote.

Sure enough, when Ms. Albright's list of 110 treaties was submitted to him, the Convention on the Rights of the Child wasn't on it at all.

The treaty is only a set of goals. Its only requirement is a report every five years stating the progress a nation is making in achieving those goals. We are the only nation in the world unwilling to do that, yet we claim the high moral ground on matters of human rights.

Robert B. Dennis is president of the Dallas Peace Center

Robert Dennis, U.S. should ratify children's treaty., The Dallas Morning News, 12-29-1997, pp 13A.

International Peace Update, 06-01-1995

The United States, signalling its intention to become a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, will become the 177th nation to sign this remarkable document. The surprise announcement was made by U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at a "celebration of life" service held for James P. Grant, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) since 1980, who died 28 January five days after resigning for health reasons.

Ms. Clinton prefaced her remarks by the words: "I was very honoured to be asked to speak here today because I consider Jim Grant to be one of the great Americans of our century." She said that the Convention was the last thing Mr. Grant had talked to her about when they spoke shortly before his death. "I know how happy and proud he would have been to see our country add its name to the Convention. We owe it to him and to the children to whom he dedicated his life."

The United States is one of the last major powers to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly 20 November 1989, opening for signature and ratification 26 January 1990, and coming into force 2 September 1990 when the required number of signatures had been received.

The U.S. announcement came on the eve of a major international conference in March 1995, the World Summit for Social Development, which dealt with poverty, unemployment and social exclusion. It also comes on the fifth anniversary of the 1990 World Summit for Children, which agreed on a series of specific goals for improving the lives of children -- including measurable progress against malnutrition, preventable disease and illiteracy.

Since the goals set by the Summit, some practical progress has been made. For example, malnutrition has been reduced, with 21 developing nations on target to achieve a 20% reduction by the end of 1995. Eighty percent immunization has been sustained or increased in most countries. Large areas of the world are becoming free of polio. Measles deaths are down by 80% compared with pre-immunization levels. Vitamin A deficiency -- a major cause of blindness and early death in children -- will soon be eliminated in at least half of the affected nations. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is preventing more than one million child deaths a year. Such progress means that, at mid-decade, approx. 2.5 million fewer children each year die from malnutrition and disease, and that least three quarters of a million fewer children each year will be disabled, blinded, crippled or mentally retarded.

But iodine deficiency disorders are still, in 1995, the world's biggest cause of preventable mental retardation. And although 90% of the developing world's children started school, many dropped out in the first few years. As a result, there are now an estimated 130 million children aged 6 to 11 who are not in school. Two thirds of them are girls.

In Asia, the region's economic success has come at the expense of increasing child abuse and exploitation. "We are still seeing the cruel companions of poverty, such as the economic, social and sexual exploitation of children," said Daniel J. Brooks, UNICEF Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, at the launching of UNICEF's State of the World's Children Report, which says that more than half a million of Asia's 500 million children work in sweatshops, brothels or on the streets.

The world's largest and fastest-growing youth population includes 100,000 child prostitutes in Thailand, more than 200,000 street children in China, and 75,000 working children in Malaysia, says the report, which says that the increased disparity between rich poor also has led to malnutrition, illiteracy and sexual discrimination.

Children are being abducted and exploited by neighboring East Asian countries, as well as being sent to other regions such as Europe and the Middle East, says Vitit Muntarghorn, director of Asianet, a network set up with support from UNICEF and aimed at fostering a regional alliance on child rights. Brooks says that active governmental support will be needed to achieve UNICEF's year 2000 goal of protection of children in especially difficult circumstances, such as street children and child sex workers. -- Jeanne Vickers, based upon reports in UNICEF's Child Health News and Review

Vickers, Jeanne, USA to Sign Convention on Rights of the Child. Vol. 60, Contemporary Women's Issues Database, 06-01-1995, pp 6.

By Ted Page, U.S. CAN BACK UP TALK ON WORLD'S KIDS., Capital Times (Madison, WI), 02-12-1996, pp 1C.

Robert Dennis, U.S. should ratify children's treaty., The Dallas Morning News, 12-29-1997, pp 13A.

NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer, UN Debates Childrens' Plight in War., AP Online, 08-25-1999.

Author not available, The world's children / / Why won't the U.S. sign their treaty?., Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11-20-1999, pp 26A.