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Opposing the CRC from Within
Every so
often we get the question: If the Convention on the Rights of the Child
is as dangerous as we warn, where are the complaints from those who
have already signed on to it? What do those who have lived with it for the last 20 years have to say?
On November 24, 2011, more than 120 non-profit organizations
from the Russian Federation and Ukraine gathered in St. Petersburg to
adopt a joint statement answering that very question.
The result is the St. Petersburg Resolution on the
Anti-Family Trends in the United Nations, on the Unacceptable Actions of
the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Monitoring Bodies, and on the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a
Communications Procedure. As you could no doubt surmise from the title, they share a lot of our concerns.
The St. Petersburg Resolution
contains 16 articles declaring the conviction of the signatories that
the United Nations and its treaty-monitoring bodies routinely overstep
the mission and authority granted to them by those documents. The
committees which oversee the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) are specifically called out.
Article
9 is especially relevant to our own cause and concerns. In it, these
internal witnesses “insist that states should respect the unique role
and position that natural (biological) parents have in the lives of
their children. Any interpretations of any provision under the
international or national law should reflect the natural presumption
that natural parents usually act in good faith and in the best interests
of their children…. We are strongly concerned over the existing
unfounded and hazardous interpretation of Article 3 of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, regarding the government as having authority
to control and supervise the life of any family and the decisions of
any parent under the pretext of providing ‘the best interests of the child’.”
Additionally, Article 13 expresses our shared concern over
the tendency of the CRC committee to interpret the treaty “in ways that
create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the
treaties.” The resolution cites as a clear example the committee’s
assertion of an all-out ban on all corporal punishment, even in the home
- in contravention of the CRC itself as interpreted under the rules of
the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. In response, the
Resolution states, “we regard those actions and interpretations of UN treaty monitoring bodies as unacceptable and undermining the genuine basics of international law."
Unfortunately for the people of Russia and Ukraine, the St.
Petersburg Resolution is not binding in any way. For them, it is an
instrument by which to urge their governments not to ratify the new
Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure, which would grant even
more authority to the rogue Committee on the Rights of the Child.
For us, the resolution provides testimony from within the
nations of the CRC which we will share with Congress and the Senate.
This testimony makes clear, from those who have lived under the CRC,
that it is not something we would want to adopt here in the United States.
Action Item
We will get this information to the Senate as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we would ask you to contact your Senators and urge them to cosponsor SR99, the Senate Resolution which opposes adoption of the CRC. You might share with them that this is an election issue for you,
and that even organizations in nations that have adopted the CRC are
coming out in protest of the Committee’s apparent war on families.
| Sen. Sherrod Brown, OH |
Sen. Maria Cantwell, WA |
| Sen. Ben Cardin, MD |
Sen. Tom Carper, DE |
| Sen. Bob Casey, PA |
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, CA |
| Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, NY |
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, MN |
| Sen. Richard Lugar, IN |
Sen. Claire McCaskill, MO |
| Sen. Bob Menendez, NJ |
Sen. Bill Nelson, FL |
| Sen. Bernie Sanders, VT |
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, MI |
| Sen. Jon Tester, MT |
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, RI |
| Sen. Joe Manchin, WV |
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Thank you for taking a moment to make your voice heard in the battle to protect America's families and freedoms!
Sincerely,
Michael Ramey
Director of Communications & Research |
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