7 October 2013

Why is the US so reluctant to sign human rights treaties?

The US is one of only three countries not to have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Last week, the United Nations shone a spotlight on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This is a little embarrassing for the US, as it is one of only three countries not to have ratified the CRC. The other two are South Sudan (which only became a country in 2011) and Somalia, which barely has a functioning government.

The provisions of the CRC hardly seem controversial – which is probably why it is so widely adopted – and centre on protecting children against abuse, neglect and exploitation, allowing them to develop their fullest potential and enabling them to participate in family, cultural and social life. But in the US there is a fear in some circles that the CRC will interfere with the rights of parents to hit their children, or to opt out of sex education. Supporters of the CRC argue that the convention acknowledges the importance of family, and protects the rights of parents.

The end result is that the US is falling short of other countries when it comes to their commitment to children’s rights. As the Economist points out, signing up to the CRC won’t necessarily involve changing a large number of local laws, with the exception of the fact that under-18s can be jailed for life without parole, and possible changes to some states’ laws on smacking children. It does however mean that the US is standing on shaky ground when it preaches to other countries about their human rights records.

The CRC isn’t the only human rights convention that the US won’t sign. It hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the world’s primary document on women’s equality. While a number of countries have signed CEDAW with a number of reservations, including most Arab states who have specified that they only agree to CEDAW to the extent that it doesn’t clash with Sharia law, the only other countries not to have ratified are Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Iran and the two South Pacific islands of Palau and Tonga.

It also hasn’t signed the The Convention against Enforced Disappearance, which prohibits the secret detention and abduction of people by the state. This is probably because the CIA was running secret prisons while the convention was being drafted. Nor has it ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

The biggest barrier to the US signing these treaties are fears that they will interfere with US’s sovereignty, which would be an easier argument to maintain if the country wasn’t quite so keen on infringing on other countries’ sovereignty in the name of human rights. If America is planning to rely increasingly on soft power and diplomacy to achieve its foreign policy aims in countries like Syria and Iran, it will soon find that this hypocrisy does come at a cost.

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Students in pre-kindergartner class in Connecticut. Photo: Getty.

Sophie McBain is a freelance writer based in Cairo. She was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman.

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The Staggers

13 February 2017

What Jeremy Corbyn and John Bercow have in common

The two men are in the firing line, but both are safer than their enemies would like to think.

The devil makes work for idle hands, which means that the parliamentary recess is always a dangerous time. That, Brexit aside, Theresa May’s domestic agenda is thin gruel at the best of times, means that people are already antsy for a much-needed injection of drama.

That’s why those recurrent eruptions of discontent in Ed Miliband’s leadership tended to flare up over the summer, as opposition politicians without much to do turned fractious.

So expect the chatter about the positions of Jeremy Corbyn and John Bercow to rumble on this week.

As far as Corbyn is concerned, the threat is more imagined than real. Corbynsceptic MPs believe that any move on their part will revitalise the Corbyn project, rather than destroy it. For the left, the scale of the challenge that changing the rules to put a Corbynite MP on the ballot in future was once again shown after two setbacks for pro-Corbyn candidates in internal elections this weekend.

What about John Bercow? The Speaker’s chair has become a little bit more uncomfortable after it emerged that he told students at the University of Reading that he had voted to Remain. On the Westminster Hour last night, Alec Shelbrooke became the latest Tory MP to call on him to go. Also on that programme: Conor Burns, an ally of the Speaker, has said the “grandstanding” over Trump has hurt Bercow’s position.

The danger for Bercow is that whereas with the Trump affair he could fairly be said to be exercising his constitutional powers, letting his view on the referendum be known publicly is a very different kettle of fish.

But again, the threat to Bercow is overstated. Not only does he retain the support of the opposition parties but the movement against him among Conservatives is smaller than it appears. Though he has eked out a not inconsiderable following on the left, support for his consistent backing of the House against the government, as well as innovations like the parliamentary crèche, mean that he can count on unusual allies. Barring further revelations, he’ll get to his preferred date of 2018, though he is more vulnerable than Corbyn.

But both rows are a sign of things to come. Labour doesn’t really have a message for this vacant week, and will likely find that vacumn is taken up by talk of Corbyn’s future. The Speaker’s critics are emboldened and won’t go quiet any time soon. For both, this week is not going to cause them to update their LinkedIns but will be more uncomfortable than they’d like.

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman. His daily briefing, Morning Call, provides a quick and essential guide to British politics.