Recently I pointed out the danger looming ahead for the United States as the White House and congress are controlled by Democrats that will result from reconsideration of previously rejected treaties. It is startling how little attention is paid by the public to what will happen to our freedom if these treaties are signed by President Obama and ratified by the Senate. Even the few responsible media ignore this danger and fail to inform Americans.
For decades Republican presidents or Republican-controlled congress were steadfast in refusing to take up these treaties even those signed by a sitting Democrat president. Perhaps the most important of these were the Kyoto Treaty signed by President Clinton and the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) refused to be considered by President Reagan. Had the Kyoto Treaty been ratified our total society and economy would be subject to draconian United Nations regulations that would be devastating. Unfortunately it is a great likelihood that the newest version will probably be accepted now. LOST is also likely to become the law of our land and American independence on the high seas will be also “lost” as will our independent ability to explore and benefit from under sea deposits. The United Nations will be in control and American sovereignty will be diminished.
Although each of the international treaties avoided until now are important, few will have the far reaching affect on Americans as the “U.N. Treaty on Children’s Rights.” Behind this fine-sounding treaty lurks the most intrusive penetration of American ideals and lives and recasting the relationships between parents and their children. This is no exaggeration.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international convention committing signatories to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. All countries that ratify this international convention are bound by it by international law. Compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child which is composed of members from countries around the world. Once a year, the Committee submits a report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which also hears a statement from the CRC Chair, and the Assembly adopts a Resolution on the Rights of the Child. Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically to be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country.
The treaty obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities but acknowledges that children have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate and to have their privacy protected and requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.
Under the treaty the United States would be obligated to provide separate legal representation for a child in any judicial dispute concerning their care and requires that the child's viewpoint be heard in such cases. The treaty also forbids capital punishment for children.
Article 29 of the treaty limits the fundamental right of parents and others to educate children in private schools by requiring that all such schools support the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, including a list of specific values and ideals. This is in conflict with U.S Supreme Court decisions that a combination of parental rights and religious liberties provide a broader right of parents and private schools to control the values and curriculum of private education free from state or federal government interference.
Article 37 prohibits sentencing of juveniles to life imprisonment with no opportunity for parole. Laws in approximately 20 states conflict with this article. The 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons found juvenile execution unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment, but does not cover the question of life without possibility of parole.
Ratification of the UNCRC by the United States would require the U.S. government to appear before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a panel of child rights experts from around the world, every 5 years to explain their implementation of such issues as universal health insurance for all American children.
Among other provisions contrary to U.S. law are the participatory rights granted to children.
Article 12 states:
"Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child ... the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child."
The treaty, adopted by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, has been ratified by 193 countries. The United States and Somalia are the two countries that have not ratified it. Critics have declared national self-determination (national sovereignty) is at the heart of why the treaty should not be ratified.
As CNSNews.com reported, “This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation,” - Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Smith said that if Congress ratifies the treaty, it would give the United Nations authority to object to federal and state laws that it thinks violate the treaty and mandates Congress have the power to pass laws to make the country comply with its provisions – a fact even advocates of the treaty do not deny. Smith said further: "This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation".
Howard Davidson, Director of the American Bar Association Center for Children and the Law said “Every national government in the world, except the United States, has developed in response to the Convention of the Rights of the Child official detailed national reports on how children are fairing in their country.” This is supposed to make the country feel guilty if it does not do the same.
Austin Ruse is president of the conservative United Nations watchdog group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He has said that the treaty reflects a worldview that rejects the idea of sovereign nations. Ruse said “They no longer want independent nations deciding what to do, but good citizens in a new international order.”
The treaty contemplates that children have rights apart from their parents. It separates parents from their children because the rights of children are created that encroach upon the rights and responsibilities of the parents.
The United States has the best laws protecting children in the world. We do not need the radical members of the United Nations to decide for us how to protect children. By any account this is a power grab by globalists who want to exert global rule over national sovereignty. The most dangerous thing about the Treaty is that rather than building stronger families, it will damage relationships by giving children “rights” to question their parents’ decisions on a range of issues, including discipline, religious training and education.
President-elect Barack Obama expressed a willingness to consider sending the treaty to Congress for ratification during his campaign. “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” Obama said. “I will review this.”
True to their plans for United Nations domination, Meg Gardinier, acting chairwoman of the Campaign for the U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child said:
“We are very excited to think we are finally in a moment in time when the U.S. might very well join that ratification process and we can join the other 193 countries who are currently using this important rights treaty as a pivotal guide to improve the child’s survival, protection and development.”
Is this what you want for our country? If not, Americans need to be fully aware of the possibility the treaty will be ratified by the United States and mount a substantial effort to see that our country does not lose still more sovereignty by accepting United Nations’ dictate of the parent-child relationship.
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LOST is also likely to become the law of our land and American independence on the high seas will be also “lost” as will our independent ability to explore and benefit from under sea deposits. The United Nations will be in control and American sovereignty will be diminished.
Since the LOS Convention came into force every US ally and every other nation with a deep seabed mining program has joined the Convention. The result is that the Convention provides the only international clearing house that provides clear title to minerals recovered from the deep seabed. Meanwhile, US firms that were once leaders in the development of technology and the conduct of exploration for deep seabed minerals have lost their foreign partners and capital and either abandoned their claims or allowed them to lie unused.
The only active minesite that used to be licensed under US law was transferred to the German partner when the US consortia shut down. That site is now registered under the LOS Convention by Germany. In addition to Germany, there are active programs underway by India, China, Japan, France, Korea, Russia and a consortium of east european states. But without having access to the process under the Convention, US firms cannot gain the security of tenure that investors and lenders require in order to put up the roughly $2 billion required to start a deep seabed mine. As a result of our failure to join the convention, we have killed a domestic industry that used to be the world leader.
Even at the cost of an industry that once held promise for the United States, one might argue that it was worth the cost if President Reagan's six objections to the LOS Convention hadn't been resolved in the 1994 Agreement on Implementation. But those objections were resolved satisfactorily with the result that the seabed mining system under the International Seabed Authority has proven itself to be more effective, and less bureaucratic, than the system originally devised and implemented under the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.
Objection to the LOS Convention has now been reduced to an example of the old saying "cutting off your nose to spite your face." Attacking the Convention, which is to the benefit of the United States and supported by the Navy, by US industry, and by environment and science groups, because one component of the Convention involves a multilateral organization with specific and limited powers is simply a sacrifice of US interests to satisfy a preconception that all multilateral organizations are bad - a preconception demonstrated to be incorrect by the success of the Convention's seabed mining regime and the failure of the domestic seabed mining legislation to foster the former domestic seabed mining firms.
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