'Club of One': US Now Lone UN Member Outside Children's Rights Treaty

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/02/club-one-us-now-lone-un-member-outside-childrens-rights-treaty



The U.S. is now the only UN member state not to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

'Club of One': US Now Lone UN Member Outside Children's Rights Treaty
Friday, October 02, 2015
Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Somalia on Thursday completed its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child—becoming the 196th nation to do so and making the United States the only United Nations state outside of the treaty.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child explains that the Convention, adopted in 1989, "is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty, sets out a number of children’s rights including the right to life, to health, to education and to play, as well as the right to family life, to be protected from violence, to not be discriminated, and to have their views heard."

As for why the U.S. would not ratify this convention that it helped draft and has already signed, Amnesty International has explained that conservative organizations like the Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family, "have made a significant effort to portray the Convention as a threat. The majority of the oppositions claims stem from unfounded concerns related to national sovereignty, states' rights, and the parent-child relationship."

~snip~

Jo Becker, Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division, writes about the main roadblock the Convention faces in the U.S.:

The main legal challenge for US ratification is that it remains the only country to sentence children to life in prison without the possibility of parole – a punishment the treaty specifically prohibits. The US Supreme Court has issued several decisions in recent years that have progressively narrowed the use of this sentence against child offenders, and states should prohibit it completely. The US should ratify the treaty.

[think]

1. Well that's down right embarrassing and shameful...

[Fred Sanders]

2. America is being monitored by the rest of the world with growing horror, if the religious nuts win.

[marym625]

3. this is the kind of stuff that makes me ill.

It's the kind of stuff that outweighs any good.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Roper v. Simmons that death by execution is unconstitutional for juveniles. Before the ruling, 365 children had been legally executed in the United States, including 22 since 1985.

The Court’s ban on juvenile executions allowed EJI to focus on the plight of nearly 3000 children age 17 or younger who had been sentenced to imprisonment until death through life-without-parole sentences imposed with very little scrutiny or review. Children as young as 13 were among the thousands condemned to die in prison.

Most of the sentences imposed on these children were mandatory: the court could not give any consideration to the child’s age or life history. Some of the children were charged with crimes that do not involve homicide or even injury; many were convicted for offenses where older teens or adults were primarily responsible for the crime; 70% of condemned kids 14 or younger are children of color.

Bold added

Equal Justice Initiative "Death in Prison Sentences for Children"

[bemildred]

4. Yes we are exceptional. nt

[left-of-center2012]

5. In defense of the USA

Congress is too busy to ratify the treat due to all the time it's had to use
repealing Obamacare;
investigating Benghazi;
etc.

[jwirr]

6. Can our President sign it or does it have to be ratified by the

Congress?

[gregcrawford]

7. Regarding the "main legal challenge..."

... for U.S. ratification, consider the sources of the opposition: Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family are borderline hate groups with the honor and integrity of a pack of hyenas.

That we give such people any credence whatsoever is a stain on the nation's reputation. That they can obstruct such a universally agreed upon convention as Rights of the Child is a malignant obscenity.

They soil and defile the very words, "Family," and "Christian" by their cynical use of them to give these groups an undeserved patina of humanity, and to justify their malice and bigotry.