Whereas the House of Representatives affirms the
commitment of the people and the Government of the United States to the
well-being, protection, and advancement of children, and the protection of the
inalienable rights of all persons of all ages;
Whereas the Constitution and laws of the United States and
those of the several States are the best guarantees against mistreatment of
children in this Nation;
Whereas the Constitution, laws, and traditions of the
United States affirm the rights of parents to raise their children and to
impart their values and religious beliefs;
Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child, adopted at New York November 20, 1989, and entered into force September
2, 1990, if ratified, would become a part of the supreme law of the land,
taking precedence over all State laws and constitutions;
Whereas the United States, and not the several States,
would be held responsible for compliance with this Convention if ratified, and
as a consequence, the United States would create an incredible expansion of
subject matter jurisdiction over all matters concerning children, seriously
undermining the constitutional balance between the Federal Government and the
governments of the several States;
Whereas Professor Geraldine Van Bueren, the author of the
principal textbook on the international rights of the child, and a participant
in the drafting of the Convention, has described the best interest of
the child standard
in the treaty as provid[ing] decision and
policy makers with the authority to substitute their own decisions for either
the child’s or the parents
;
Whereas the Scottish Government has issued a pamphlet to
children of that country explaining their rights under the Convention, which
declares that children have the right to decide their own religion and that
parents can only provide advice;
Whereas the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child has repeatedly interpreted the Convention to ban common disciplinary
measures utilized by parents;
Whereas the Government of the United Kingdom was found to
be in violation of the Convention by the United Nations Committee on the Rights
of the Child for allowing parents to exercise a right to opt their children out
of sex education courses in the public schools without a prior government
review of the wishes of the child;
Whereas the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child has held that the Governments of Indonesia and Egypt were out of
compliance with the Convention because military expenditures were given
inappropriate priority over children’s programs;
Whereas these and many other interpretations of the
Convention by those charged with its implementation and by other authoritative
supporters demonstrates that the provisions of the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child are utterly contrary to the principles of law in the
United States and the inherent principles of freedom;
Whereas the decisions and interpretations of the United
Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child would be considered by the
Committee to be binding and authoritative upon the United States should the
United States Government ratify the Convention, such that the Convention poses
a threat to the sovereign rights of the United States and the several States to
make final determinations regarding domestic law; and
Whereas the proposition that the United States should be
governed by international legal standards in its domestic policy is tantamount
to proclaiming that the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of
the several States are incompetent to draft domestic laws that are necessary
for the proper protection of children, an assertion that is not only an affront
to self-government but an inappropriate attack on the capability of legislators
in the United States: Now, therefore, be it
That it is the sense of the House of
Representatives that—
(1)the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted at New York November 20, 1989,
and entered into force September 2, 1990, is incompatible with the
Constitution, the laws, and the traditions of the United States;
(2)the Convention
would undermine proper presumptions of freedom and independence for families in
the United States, supplanting those principles with a presumption in favor of
governmental intervention without the necessity for proving harm or
wrong-doing;
(3)the Convention
would interfere with the principles of sovereignty, independence, and
self-government in the United States that preclude the necessity or propriety
of adopting international law to govern domestic matters; and
(4)the President
should not transmit the Convention to the Senate for its advice and
consent.