Convention on the Rights of the Child Update

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a multilateral human rights treaty that promotes the rights of all children worldwide. 

A total of 195 countries have ratified the CRC and are participating actively in implementing its provisions to protect children, strengthen families and unquestionably improve the lives of those under 18. South Sudan ratified the CRC in May 2015, and it is now the most universally accepted treaty ever adopted in the history of the world. Only Somalia and the United States have failed to ratify the CRC.

The CRC recognizes all children's rights to develop physically, mentally, and socially to their fullest potential, to express their opinions freely, and to participate in decisions affecting their future. The CRC provides a vision of children as individuals and as members of a family and community, with rights and responsibilities appropriate to their age and stage of development. It offers much-needed protection to children at risk, including minority and poor children, children with disabilities and other vulnerable populations in areas such as access to quality education, health care, and protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation.

The CRC is the first legally binding international instrument that incorporates the full range of human rights — civil, cultural, economic, political, and social — into a single text. The United States of America played a pivotal role in the long process of drafting the CRC and it incorporates many of the standards first found in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and yet, the US has still not ratified this most important human rights treaty.

If ratified by the United States, the CRC would bolster existing protections and foster US commitment to and promotion of children's rights in the US and around the world. With US endorsement of the CRC, the world would stand united in its universally-shared goal to protect and promote children’s best interests. As a party to the Convention, the US would be eligible to participate in the Committee on the Rights of the Child (the international body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the CRC) and take an active role in encouraging further progress in countries that have already ratified the Convention.

It is time that the US Senate finally recognizes that too many US children need the CRC to motivate necessary changes in federal and state law, and policy and practice that will enhance the well-being of our country’s most marginalized children. Let us appeal to President Obama and to our US senators to express our concern that the conspicuous absence of the United States as a party to the CRC undermines our nation’s international leadership role on behalf of children and families.