I do speak of the entire document, none of which is open for debate. It's to either be signed as law, or not. I very much prefer not.

The United States of America has signed the Convention, but has not yet ratified the Convention, and there are reasons:

A significant political divide might be where the U.N. accepts human cloning (i.e., statements such as "irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status" [Article 2/1.]). Human cloning is currently illegal in the United States. I have little doubt that our own Right to Lifers -- particularly our nation’s religious zealots -- would wish the reserve the right to terminate clones, regardless of age.

Article 13 is interesting in itself. It does not “allow” for a child’s full and complete access to the internet. It “demands” a child’s full and complete access to the internet, above and beyond any and all parental control devices currently available for home censure. Of course Article 17 (e) attempts to correct this:

“(e) Encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being, bearing in mind the provisions of articles 13 and 18.”

...but fails again to take into account the fact that the line between publicly unacceptable material and art is gray, and approximately 30 miles broad. A parent’s intervention supersedes local laws -- but will fail against a U.N. mandate.

I also see no measure given in the document for the privacy of citizens who opt to place a child for adoption. Currently, contact between children and birth-parents in the United States is only by mutual consent, except where medical peculiarities are concerned, those being historical records of genetically transmitted diseases/ailments. I see no reason why this should change simply because a child-now-adult demands to know why he/she was so inadequate that the birth-parents opted to not raise them. It is not the offspring's business why, any more than it is the birth-parent's fault that the offspring requires this information. A brief, anonymous summary-background from the adopting agency should suffice in the matter.

I see that the Principality of Andorra raises and interesting concern, in that the document nowhere prohibits the use of children for recruitment in armed conflict, with Article 38 actually condoning the recruitment of children, provided they are at least 15 years of age. This is for armed, toe-to-toe battle on the open field. The document states that children remain classified as children until they are 18-years-old. The U.S. agrees with this, except in guardian-/parent-signed waivers wherein a child of 17 may enlist in military service. If this document is to protect children, why does it condone placing them in armed conflict?

Well, the document is pretty much exactly what the youth of America have, and without the need for the hefty read, and the United States of America does, according to U.N. charter, have the right to hold reservations and conditions to the document in question, but this is nothing more than exceptions to be pulled up later against U.N. charges, which are to be considered by the United Nations, but not necessarily accepted. The U.S. must then allow decisions regarding her internal legal system to fall to international decision, like it or not.

I don’t like it.

The U.N. should keep its nose where it belongs, and that is with belligerent affairs of states affecting the international court, not the benign affairs internal to an already-free state.

And regardless whether this document is signed or not, it will now, thanks to the confused efforts of the U.N., remain as a bartering tool -- children as a bartering tool -- for world peace, and that is crap. When you just pick out the best parts of one law (3 articles of a 54 article document), you miss the dirt.

And there is more...
Dan