{"id":50099,"date":"2014-11-24T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=50099"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:27:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:27:17","slug":"us-joins-somalia-and-south-sudan-in-failing-to-support-child-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/11\/us-joins-somalia-and-south-sudan-in-failing-to-support-child-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"US Joins Somalia and South Sudan in Failing to Support Child Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"children<\/a><\/p>\n

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights milestone. There is no reason for the US not to ratify it.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Nov. 20, 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a landmark human rights treaty protecting children\u2019s rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was negotiated for more than a decade, a process in which the U.S. played a critical role. The administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush contributed provisions to the convention, and in its final form, the treaty incorporates numerous elements of U.S. law and practices.<\/p>\n

Upon circulation, the convention was widely adopted and became the most ratified human rights treaty in history.\u00a0 Now, 25 years later, as the world celebrates Universal Children\u2019s Day,\u00a0only three countries<\/a>\u00a0bear the shame of not having ratified the CRC: Somalia, South Sudan and the United States. In failing to ratify, the U.S. has lost an important opportunity to shape international law and improve its human rights record here at home.<\/p>\n

The treaty was born of the belief that children are acutely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and therefore deserve special protection. The CRC seeks to promote the best interests of the child through law and regulation, protect children from discrimination and abuse and ensure their right to develop and be heard.<\/p>\n

The treaty prescribes modest, time-tested measures to facilitate these goals. States that have ratified the CRC must submit a report within two years of ratification and every five years thereafter to an 18-person committee of human rights experts.\u00a0The committee then makes nonbinding recommendations regarding steps that countries should take to fulfill their treaty obligations.\u00a0The reporting system is built on the premise that self-evaluation and transparency leads to change.\u00a0Public reports make states accountable to their democratic institutions and to the world and empowers local actors, including civil society organizations, to set agendas and advocate for reform.<\/p>\n

History shows that these mechanisms can have an enormous impact on human rights. The CRC is widely credited with facilitating major reforms in children\u2019s rights around the world.\u00a0In response to recommendations from the committee, more than a dozen countries have incorporated some or all of the convention into their constitutions.\u00a0Barbados, China, Yemen and Zimbabwe have raised the age for capital punishment to 18.\u00a0And India, South Africa, Togo, Lebanon and numerous other countries have banned abusive practices against children, including female genital mutilation, virginity testing and honor killings.<\/p>\n

The success stories are countless and well established.\u00a0The objections to ratification, on the other hand, are not.<\/p>\n

As the rest of the world shapes children\u2019s rights in international law, the US is conspicuously absent, forfeiting the opportunity to share its knowledge and experience in the hall of nations.<\/p>\n

Some U.S. lawmakers contend that ratification would allow children to sue their parents.\u00a0Yet the treaty contains no such provision and leaves this issue to the discretion of ratifying states.\u00a0Others contend that the treaty prohibits corporal punishment and would interfere with private family decisions.\u00a0Again, the treaty does no such thing.\u00a0Rather it seeks to protect children from domestic violence and abuse, a principle already enshrined in U.S. law.<\/p>\n

Underlying these objections is a deeper worry that the convention will somehow erode U.S. sovereignty and federalism.\u00a0This concern is misguided.\u00a0The U.S. has ratified numerous other human rights treaties \u2014 including ones that protect against racial discrimination, torture and genocide \u2014 and has not experienced a concomitant loss of sovereignty.\u00a0Moreover, if there are limited, discrete areas of the CRC that aren\u2019t harmonious with state law, the U.S. may always submit reservations \u2014 a tool that allows countries to ratify treaties subject to certain conditions as long as the reservations don\u2019t defeat the purpose of the treaty.<\/p>\n

For decades, these chimeras have impeded U.S. ratification and the two-thirds U.S. Senate vote necessary to move forward. In the interim, much has been lost.\u00a0As the rest of the world shapes children\u2019s rights in international law, the U.S. is conspicuously absent, forfeiting the opportunity to share its knowledge and experience in the hall of nations. This is especially shameful, given that President\u00a0Bill Clinton\u2019s administration\u00a0signed the treaty\u00a0in 1995. In signing the treaty but not ratifying it, the U.S.\u00a0has communicated to the world that it agrees with the treaty\u2019s principles but refuses to be bound by them.<\/p>\n

Much work remains.\u00a0Roughly 2 million children are abused every year in the global commercial sex trade.\u00a0Millions more under the age of 5 die from preventable causes.\u00a0And in developing countries, 150 million children engage in child labor.<\/p>\n

At home too, there\u2019s room for progress.\u00a0Although the U.S. is a leader on many children\u2019s rights issues, problems still persist.\u00a0Unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border are often denied due process and the right to counsel in immigration hearings.\u00a0Fourteen states have no minimum age for trying children as adults, and some even impose life sentences without the possibility of parole.\u00a0And in the field of public health, the U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates among industrialized nations.<\/p>\n

Ameliorating the plight of exploited and abused children and maximizing the potential of all children requires collaboration, creativity and humility.\u00a0In going it alone, the U.S. hurts itself, the rest of the world and children everywhere.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Arjun Sethi is a writer and lawyer. He currently serves as legislative counsel for human rights, national security and privacy related affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 years later, as the world celebrates Universal Children\u2019s Day, only three countries bear the shame of not having ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Somalia, South Sudan and the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}