Children's Rights

Last week the folks at Emory held a conference, "What's Wrong With Rights for Children?," devoted to the question of why the United States is the only nation other than Somalia not to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Martin Marty reports:

Some who care about these things are embarrassed, ashamed, frustrated, and even enraged that presidents do not forward the Convention to the Senate -- which, however, in the present climate would never consent to it. In his keynote at the conference last weekend in Atlanta, where he returned for a kind of progress report, the usually hopeful Nobel Laureate [Jimmy] Carter commented in one word on the possibility of the U.S. joining all the rest of the world now: It's "hopeless." Period.

A question for my fellow travelers on the Catholic legal theory road (readers and co-bloggers alike): is there any persuasive reason why the Convention should not be embraced by those concerned with the well-being of the child?  Should Catholic legal theorists be taking up the charge and advocating for its ratification?

Just to give fair warning to those who want to build a Catholic legal theory case against the Convention: Pope John Paul II declared in 1984 that "The Holy See regards the present Convention as a proper and laudable instrument aimed at protecting the rights and interests of children, who are 'that precious treasure given to each generation as a challenge to its wisdom and humanity.'"

Nevertheless, was the Pope missing something that should give the United States pause?

Rob