Of Politics and Policy: Can the U.S. Maintain Its Credibility abroad while Ignoring the Needs of Its Children at Home?—Revisiting the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Transnational Framework for Local Governing

摘要

The article uses the lens of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a framework for developing solutions. It compares the world’s approach of using the underpinnings of the Convention to create the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This process represents a positive evolution in international human rights law. Use of the MDGs has met with some success. As a result, the article compares the U.S. go-it-alone approach with that of the collaborative model of the MDGs. Pointing out that child law is primarily state law, the article then discusses the ways in which local governments (cities, counties, and parishes) can use the Convention and the MDGs to better protect against child poverty, since the federal level is unlikely to do so in the near future. The article concludes by exhorting federal policy makers to recognize their role in developing solutions to child poverty issues and assist not only U.S. children but also the world in achieving the MDGs by the target date of 2015.