TIL the USA is the only country to not have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child
Convention on the Rights of the Child - Wikipedia
It has been claimed that American opposition to the convention stems primarily from political and religious conservatives.
Shocking.
Don't forget, our capitalists have been hard at work infecting the rest of the world with OUR greed disease. We're the ones advocating other nations stop seeing their people as valued citizens and instead as capital livestock to be exploited mercilessly.
Child labor exists elsewhere out of desperate, struggling developing economies. We're worse imho, because we're doing it amid record profits, because its never enough, and our gluttonous pig oligarch owners ever demanding mooooaaaaaar, exploiting these kids whose schools they've already destroyed and stole the funding of through tax evasion and legislative tax policy capture.
We aren't human to them, we're capital livestock, which just makes our non-wealthy children capital veal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/republican-child-labor-law-death
IMHO, the root of the issue is that the GOP has been dogmatically opposed to international law for decades now. They donât like having to answer to anyone other than themselves. And you need 2/3rd of the senate to ratify.
It's more than that, because Republican governors have been actively trying and succeeding in rolling back hard won child labor protection laws.
It's not just about not having the foreigns telling them what to do, it's because Republicans want children providing cheap labor to boost their stock portfolio. Here. Now.
Capitalism isn't exclusive to the US. It's definitely a major breeding ground for the worst aspects of it, but it's hardly unique in that regard.
The US is the terrorist headquarters of capitalism.
Our brand of rigged market capitalism truly found it's stride under Reagan's deregulation giveaway. We've been exporting/advocating/bullying other developed nations to do the same ever since. There are tightly, tightly controlled, adequately taxed capitalist economies that focus on how REASONABLE capital incentive can benefit society (the point of any economy, that we've abandoned) that can work, like the Nordic model, but now we're coming for that too, and we'll do to them what we did to the UK and are doing to France.
It's an easy sell. A faustian bargain. You just need a few people in the right positions of power. "Hey, YOU can live larger. You can live like a modern pharoah. Just sell out your countrymen. Do you like yachts? How about yachts the size of cruise ships?"
Capitalism, sure, but how about child labour in first world countries?
What children are being forced to work in dangerous places? Or missing school to do so? Is there a bunch of 4th graders missing school to go into the mines?
American opposition to the convention stems primarily from political and religious conservatives. For example, The Heritage Foundation considers that "a civil society in which moral authority is exercised by religious congregations, family, and other private associations is fundamental to the American order"
No surprise there
The US barely ever ratifies treaties that require international oversight. Itâs the same reason we have the UCMJ and not the Hague court.
These high-minded treaties don't actually mean anything - there's no enforcement mechanism and countries with a much worse human-rights record than the USA have signed them without consequences. IMO it's better not to sign them than it is to pretend that signing does any good and lend unearned legitimacy to those other countries.
The treaty itself does not have any enforcement mechanism; however the US does. US courts recognize ratified treaties as having equal weight to laws passed the normal way Ratifying the Treaty would immediately make it federal law. The US has a robust enough legal system that the courts would the (over years of building up case law) determine exactly what that means.
This.
A treaty is a three step process. Draft, sign, ratify. This made it to step two, not step three for the US.
This perception arises from the fact that people think signing and ratifying are the same thing. They are not.
A treaty needs to be ratified to be legally binding, and ratification takes 2/3rd of the senate to OK it.
The executive branch signs international shit all the time, but they canât get it through Congress. Which is why recent treaties lack teeth.
Ah yes the oft-used American Exceptionalist attitude of "we're too good to bind ourselves to treaties like this".
Tale as old as time. It's why the US isn't a member of the ICJ and many other international treaties. King's don't follow rules - they make them!
So might it be actionable that Israel is violating this? Not that I actually expect anything will really happen if this is pursued.
freedom ferda!
USA! USA! USA!
Whatda phuk
The US did sign and help to draft it, but to ratify you need a 2/3rd majority in the Senate. And the conservatives in Congress want domestic control over all law making and enforcement.
This could be an international treaty against punching kittens, and they would still vote no.
Edit: Itâs also worth adding that a) this (like US law) has carve outs that allow kids to work under certain conditions, and b) this isnât a labor specific treaty. This covers corporal, punishment, criminal punishment, education, gender, and sexuality, healthcare and a number of other things that are hot button issues for American conservatives.
Also, after this was drafted, the US has ratified international agreements on child labor.
Saying this is just a labor thing isnât the full story at all.
Plus McConnell would never ratify a treaty that outlaws his favorite pastime.
The kittens are under anesthesia when they're being punched. It's very humane.
For similar reasons the Tories in the UK want to throw away the current Human Rights Act.
You know, just in case it has too many rights, and they want to remove some later.
Don't forget child brides. They're still legal in many states of the US of A.