Talk:U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Beginning
This article is a spin-off from the main article on the Convention, which has a large amount of information and discussion on the US ratification process, even though every other member country of the United Nations has ratified the Convention. --Rbreen (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Removal of criticism from main page
All this move seems to have done is remove all of the criticism of the convention from the main page. Sweetmoose6 (talk) 16:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. This page was created because the existing page was being distorted by the existence of extensive discussion of the debate about ratification in the one functioning country which has failed to ratify it. This is largely an internal US matter and is largely about US politics. Is there any evidence that any of these criticisms relate to the actual functioning of the Convention as it affects the countries which actually operate within it? --Rbreen (talk) 17:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Additionally, this is not a criterion for speedy deletion. If the content of this article is really not notable, it should not go in the main article either. --Rbreen (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's try to have one discussion about this over at Talk:Convention on the Rights of the Child. Regards, Polemarchus (talk) 18:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

religous fundamentalists, political conservatives and Somalia
The claim that all opposition to ratification of the Convention is the work of religous nuts or conservatives is a very poor one -- especially since it occurs almost immediately after talking about Ronald Reagan's (a staunch conservative) support for it. This claim may have a source (though I can't find it) but its not readily verifiable and extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. There are many conservatives who support the CRC and many liberals that are opposed to it on the grounds that, among other things, it undermines parental rights across the board by subjecting them to constant judicial, administrative and bureaucratic review and, contrary to this article's claims parental rights are not a plank of conservatism but have broad-based support by all political ideologies. It may be true that conservatives are more likely to oppose the CRC on the grounds that they view the idea of international law as generally incompatible with American ideals and sovereignty, particularly when the law has no international dimensions, but there are plenty of other grounds where opponents can and do take issue with ratification of the CRC as a whole in the US. To clarify the CRC is an international treaty, but it's implementation would be completely domestic, a not uncommon situation in Private international law. How American's raise, educate and care for their children has no legitimately international dimension -- contrast this with other international treaties on children such as the Hague Abduction Convention or other treaties dealing with genuinely international issues such as International child abduction.

While I don't dispute the accuracy of the statement that "only Somalia and the US haven't ratified the treaty" I do object to the fact that this statement is generally contextualized pejoratively to cast the US as on par with third-world Somalia in terms of children's rights or protection of children. The ratification of this treaty by many signatories is meaningless as they have no real legal constructs to support international law generally much less the CRC specifically. This is in contrast the US which, upon ratifying a treaty, allows it supremacy to all other laws short of the US constitution and would, overnight, overide the laws in all 50 states (family law is generally created at the State level) and even all federal case law on the topic. Indeed every country with problems of child trafficking, starvation, neglect and abuse has signed the treaty and pretending the US is like Somalia for not signing is like saying that Western Europe is like Darfur for having signed it. Even if the CRC were not a treaty that explicitly allowed non-compliance as long as a country shows "progress" the implications for ratifying an international treaty vary widely from country to country. Does anyone actually think that Ethiopia does more to protect chidlren than the US does? As another example, in the Netherlands treaties are even sovereign to the nations own constitution (being a constitutional democracy like the US) giving treaties there sweaping powers, while in other countries international treaties are little better than harsh toilet paper and have no legal standing whatsoever.--Cybermud (talk) 06:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the material on the opposition to the convention is poorly sourced and written. The statement "Opposition to ratification by some religious groups, some of whom claim it conflicts with the United States Constitution" appears as a complete non sequitur to me, and unfortunately no more material is given in the article. The citation to the emory law review article is dead. Also unfortunate is that this poorly sourced claim shows up both in the general article on this UN convention as well as this expanded article. Snarfblaat (talk) 15:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Re-org: what d'ya think?
The current article mixed up a lot of different issues in a few paragraphs. To clarify it, I tried re-organizing into a few basic parts What d'you think? rewinn (talk) 23:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Short, plain statement of current status and history.
 * List of people and groups on differing sides of the debate
 * The controversies that make up the debate. By parsing out each controversy, and including the arguments made on each side, we might have a useful resource.


 * Thank you! Pete.pereira (talk) 03:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

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Boot camps
Is this not a violation of children's rights?87.249.198.87 (talk) 06:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Roper v. Simmons
This edit caught my eye. This changed the date of an assertion saying, "In 2005, 22 U.S. states allowed for the execution of juvenile offenders. This ceased after the 2005 Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons, which found [...]" (2005 in there was changed by the edit from 2009). Google turned up this 2002 paper which says: "In 2002, 22 U.S. states allowed for the execution of juvenile offenders." I see here that the Opinion in Roper actually says, "The Court noted that 22 of the 37 death penalty States permitted the death penalty for 16-year-old offenders, and, among these 37 States, 25 permitted it for 17-year-old offenders." (I've added a link to that opinion to a cite in the article). Perhaps some rewriting is in order. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:14, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Understand that the 2005 Court judgement found 22 States allowed 16 & 17 y o children to be executed and another 3 States allowed 17 y o children to be executed. Thus the number of States that allowed children (below age 18) to be executed was 25. Edited just now to correct the # to 25. Thanks! Pete.pereira (talk) 07:26, 30 June 2023 (UTC)