In what may be the greatest assault ever on parental rights in America, liberal leaders are pushing for Senate ratification of a United Nations treaty called the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. If ratified, it would:

• radically encroach on our sovereignty;

• subject us to an independent UN committee of “experts” in Geneva;

• allow the government in all cases to determine what is in a child’s best interest;

• intrude on parents’ rights to teach values and faith; and

• grant to children autonomous rights, which many believe would include access to controversial sexual information and even abortion.

Good Intentions

To protect children is a noble aim, and the United Nations has taken major steps in that direction. Shortly after its own creation, the UN created the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, or UNICEF, to provide relief for children in countries devastated by World War II. Later, UNICEF (with the name changed to the United Nations Children’s Fund) became a permanent part of the UN, with an expanded mission to serve the children of the world.

The UN’s concern for children continued in its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared that motherhood and children are deserving of “special care and assistance.” The UN sought to encourage such special care by its 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Then, in a laudable effort to strengthen protection of the world’s children, the UN worked toward creating an international treaty (called a “convention”). It became a reality with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, enacted with reservations expressed by various countries. The treaty is unquestionably well-intentioned and addresses many important areas of concern for the protection of children. But good intentions do not assure good laws.

President Obama’s Embarrassment and Commitment 

Within a year of its enactment in 1989, some 130 nations had already ratified the treaty, and today it is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world. Only two nations have not joined: war-torn Somalia, and the United States. The Clinton Administration signed the CRC in 1995, but the Senate has never ratified (although it has ratified the Convention’s two optional protocols: one on children in armed conflict, the other on child trafficking, prostitution, and pornography).

That the US has never ratified the treaty itself is galling to President Obama. “It is embarrassing,” he has stated, “to find ourselves in the company of Somalia.” President Obama’s Ambassador to the UN is Susan Rice, who during her Senate confirmation hearing referred to the CRC as “a very important treaty and a noble cause…. There can be no doubt that [President Obama] and Secretary Clinton and I share a commitment to the objectives of this treaty and will take it up as an early question,” she stated, “to ensure that the United States is playing and resumes its global leadership role in human rights.”

What’s in a Name?

One of the Senators pushing hard for ratification is Barbara Boxer. “Children deserve basic human rights,” she declared, “and the convention protects children’s rights by setting some standards here so that the most vulnerable people of society will be protected.” Boxer’s words sound appealing. Who could be against protecting children? Indeed, who would dare oppose a treaty bearing the name “Convention on the Rights of the Child”?

But if, as a Chinese proverb holds, it is the beginning of wisdom to call things by their right names, then the title “Convention on the Rights of the Child” may be misleading. For however noble the motives behind it, and however good the aspirations of its proponents, and whatever good provisions it does contain, yet the fact remains that, in the words of law professor Bruce Hafen, the treaty “includes an unprecedented approach to the autonomy of children” and thereby jeopardizes parents' rights to protect and guide their children. 

Trumping Our Laws and Handing over Parental Rights to the Government 

Because of our Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, ratification of this international treaty would make it “the supreme law of the land,” superior to all other state and federal laws. This would disrupt our federal system created under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government.

Even more troubling is the CRC’s approach to allow government to step in and, without any showing of any harm on the part of parents, to override parental decisions based on what the government believes is in the child’s best interest. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, writes:

This is contrary to traditional American law, which provides that absent proof of harm, courts and social workers simply do not have the authority to intervene in parent-child relationships and decision-making. The importance of this tradition and practice is that the government may not substitute its judgment for that of the parent until there is proof of harm to the child sufficient to justify governmental intervention. It is clear that in two very important areas of the parent-child relationship, religion and education, there will be potential for tremendous conflict [if the CRC is ratified].

Becoming Subject to an International Committee of “Experts”

As if all this were not bad enough, the CRC places each nation under the oversight of an unelected and unaccountable United Nations committee of eighteen “independent experts” who meet in Geneva. This Committee on the Rights of the Child monitors compliance with the treaty and the committee’s interpretation of it. The committee requires regular reports from each country and then provides “recommendations.” While the committee has no official enforcement authority, these recommendations can carry substantial weight. 

In a study entitled “How U.N. Conventions On Women's and Children's Rights Undermine Family, Religion, and Sovereignty,” Patrick Fagan of the Family Research Council tells that the Committee on the Rights of the Child is “targeting patterns of behavior and social norms that have had the greatest positive effects on society and the individual:… motherhood and fatherhood, caring for children in the family, chastity, and the special role of religion.” Fagan points to several examples of the committee’s recommendations.

• The committee criticized the United Kingdom for the fact that parents were allowed to remove their children from sex-education classes without giving due consideration to the wishes of the children themselves.

• The committee criticized Austria for not providing a legal minimum age for medical counseling and treatment without parental consent (“targeted specifically,” notes Fagan, “at removing parents’ control over the moral formation of their children and the parameters of their children's sexual behavior.”)

• The committee told Belize that it needed to establish legal mechanisms to allow children to challenge their parents, and criticized the government for not allowing children to seek medical or legal counseling without parental consent.

Why would we Americans submit ourselves to an outside body in this vital area of parent-child relationships? Why would we voluntarily subject ourselves to global governance by handing over a key part of our national sovereignty to a foreign committee? 

What Children Really Need 

Allan Carlson, President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, in speaking of the CRC, has emphasized that children’s real needs include the right to a father and a mother united in the bonds of marriage, the right to religious faith, and the right to mature physically, emotionally, and morally (“How to Make the World Truly Safe for Children”).

For further information, see www.nocrc.org.