Our Global ParentsrnThe Convention on the Rights of the Childrnby Christopher CheckrnAmericans wlio hoped tliat the United Nations’ Conventionrnon the Rights of the Child would be stuffed in a drawerrnwith its predecessor, the Convention on the Elimination of AllrnForms of Discrimination Against Women, got a jolt in Februaryrnwhen Mrs. Clinton announced (at the funeral of UNICEF directorrnJames Grant) that the Convention would be signed andrnfor\ ardcd to the Senate for ratification. If step one came easilyrn(Madeleine Albright signed the document on February 16),rnstep two faces greater odds: a Foreign Relations Committeernheaded by Jesse Helms.rnMan defenders of the family are more worried about woridrngocrnment than the terrific power their own local child saversrnwield, which is surprising. After all, the agents of such programsrnas Parents as Teachers (PAT) in Missouri or the Departmentrnof Child and Famih- Services (DCFS) in Illinois do notrnhac to wait, unlike UNICEF, for the power to snatch children:rnthe alread- have it. The Convention on the Rights of thernChild demands scrutiny not because its decrees are about tornbecome the law of the land, but because its aspiratioris are alreadrnembedded in the child protection laws of the 50 states.rnSpecifically, the Convention seeks to extend “the mantle ofrnhuman rights protection” to “one of the most vulnerablerngroups in society—children.” If some people find this rhetoricrnappealing, it is because they have not considered at what cost itrnwill be realized, and I do not mean the 25 percent of the U.N.’srnChristopher Check is the associate editor of The Family inrnAmerica, a puhUcation of The Rockford Institute.rnoperating budget that American taxpayers bankroll. Similar expressionsrnare found in the U.N. Charter, which calls for “therneconomic and social advancement of all peoples.” Such termsrnare difficult to define, impossible to quantify. If one man’srn”economic advancement” is another man’s bankruptc’, consensusrnon “social adancement” would seem even further beyondrnreach. People who suffer this life with an eve on their eternalrnreward see “advancement” as something different fromrnthose whose goal is perfecting life on earth. Changing the sloganrnfrom “social advancement” to “development,” i^he wordrncurrently m ogue, makes little difference. As one U.N. criticrnmused in Cairo last year: “Who is more ‘developed’? The adolescentrnAfrican virgin who walks five miles to school? Or herrnpeer in the neighboring village fitted with a diaphragm courtesyrnof the World Health Organization?”rn”Human rights,” hoyvever, seenr to be something eseryonerncan agree on, as America’s own infatuation with rights will testify.rn”Fetal rights” activists have this in common with theirrn”gay rights” adersaries: both look to government to enforcerntheir claim and turn the Bill of Rights on its head. Instead ofrndefining a sphere of human society into which the federal governmentrnma’ not intrude, the Bill of Rights today functions asrnlittle more than a list of individual privileges granted and enforcedrnby goernment. The very rights which were to hobblernthe federal government in fact now empower it.rnThe reductio ad ahsurdum of this obsession with individualrnrights can be seen in a recent issue of the American Journal ofrnInternational Law. “the right to sleep,” “the right not to bernOCTOBER 1995/25rnrnrn