The United Nations General Assembly adopted a document in 1989 that outlines 40 specific rights that every child on the planet has, including the right to life, access to healthcare, education, protection from abuse, and participation in decisions that impact them. It is the most extensively ratified human rights agreement in recorded history. It has been signed by every member state of the UN. That is, everyone but the United States.
It’s difficult to ignore how that fact has aged. The United States did not simply abstain from participation in the negotiations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. During the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, American officials actively participated in its drafting. In 1995, the Clinton administration signed it. After that, nothing. The treaty has never been sent to the Senate for ratification by a president of either party. Decades went by. It was ratified by Somalia. It was ratified by South Sudan. The United States stood by itself, refusing to be bound by a document it helped draft.
This isn’t a technicality, according to organizations like OMEP, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, which is present in more than 60 countries. It influences results. The United States was ranked 26th out of 29 high-income countries in 2013 for overall child well-being, and by 2020, it had fallen to 38th out of 38 for children’s mental well-being specifically, according to research published in peer-reviewed medical literature. It is genuinely questionable whether non-ratification is a contributing factor or a symptom of that decline. However, it is hard to claim that the two are unrelated.
Ratification has always been met with the same standard objections. sovereignty. Federalism. rights of parents. In essence, the claim is that reaching an international agreement to safeguard children would in some way endanger American families, which has always seemed to many advocates to be a bizarre reversal of logic. The crucial role of parents is expressly affirmed by the CRC. It specifically asks governments to assist families in carrying out their obligations to children. It appears that those who criticize the treaty for being anti-family either didn’t read it carefully or thought it would be politically advantageous to misrepresent it.
It seems that in recent years, the conversation has become more, not less, urgent. About 40% of children in America are covered by Medicaid. Millions of families are fed by SNAP. Libraries in public schools are now sites of political conflict. Misinformation about vaccines has made it possible for measles to reappear in a nation where it was once thought to be eradicated. At the same time, there has been persistent pressure on federal programs that support children’s health and education. Regardless of one’s political stance on those particular discussions, the overall impact on children is quantifiable, and the United States lacks a legally binding framework based on children’s rights to assess or oppose any of it.
Ratification has come to be seen as a useful tool rather than a gesture by child advocates, pediatric researchers, and early childhood education organizations. In contrast to American domestic law, a rights-based approach to child health and development would offer a common vocabulary, a set of metrics, and a legal accountability framework. Millions of children are currently impacted by decisions made within political frameworks that do not formally acknowledge them as individuals with rights. They are future voters, dependents on tax forms, and program beneficiaries. However, they are not legally the holders of rights.
At a time when advocates are fighting for school meals, counseling services, and safe classrooms—things that in most wealthy democracies are viewed as non-negotiable floors, not policy choices up for annual debate—it is difficult to ignore the particular weight of that disparity. Honest researchers and advocates will tell you that the CRC wouldn’t solve all of that in a single day. It would do this by establishing those things as legal rights. that children in this nation are entitled to them. That is not a minor issue. And for OMEP and the organizations standing beside it, the argument is simple: the longer the U.S. waits, the more children bear the cost of that delay.
