Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Opinio Juris » Blog Archive » A Task for Koh: Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

by Julian Ku

Congrats to new Legal Advisor (or almost-Legal Advisor) Harold Koh! And it looks like he will have plenty of stuff to do. Among other things that will be on his agenda: Submitting the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the Senate. According to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, this is going to happen. At least she sort of said that.

The Obama administration is reviving efforts to have the United States sign onto a global children’s rights treaty ratified by every U.N. member except the U.S. and Somalia, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Monday.

Administration officials are actively discussing “when and how it might be possible to join,” Rice, a Cabinet-level official, said while visiting a school in Harlem and fielding a teenager’s specific question about the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

She did not provide a specific timetable for the decision and has said previously only that the administration would conduct a legal review of the treaty.

But during her a brief question-and-answer session with 120 junior high school students at Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit educational facility, Rice acknowledged that the effort was long overdue given that “the only two countries” that are not part of the treaty are the United States and the lawless Horn of Africa nation.