Martin E. Marty, "but Even So, Look at That": Working With the Convention on the Rights of the Child

• Citation: Vol. 20 No. 1
• Publication year: 2006

"BUT EVEN SO, LOOK AT THAT": WORKING WITH THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Martin E. Marty^*

I. SETTING THE SCENE: "BUT EVEN SO . . ."

The late Dr. Lewis Thomas, former head of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, influenced my thoughts on failed Utopias, which, in turn, informs my thinking and proposals with respect to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.¹The Convention itself is anything but

Utopian: The 192 nations that ratified it evidently saw in the Convention a combination of ideals and workable counsel. They saw in it inspiration, guidance, and practical proposals. While it is not Utopian and therefore cannot be considered a "failed Utopia," the fact that the United States is alone among functioning nations-the only other non-ratifier being Somalia, which does not have a governmental system to give it status as a signer-means that the Convention must be regarded as a call and program that the United States has failed to sign. In the eyes of the rest of the world, this refusal represents a failure of will, moral vision, and resolve. It is an indication that the United States does not want to be a fully responsible player on the international "rights" front.

In the essay, "To Err is Human" in The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, Dr. Thomas dealt with accidental errors, not a willed failure such as this, but the analogies between the two are obvious to those who set out to retrieve something of value from a failed experiment or venture. Thomas observed that "mistakes are the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules."²Those who face mistakes and subsequently ask about their consequences do not say they learned from them by "trial and rightness" or "trial and triumph," but by "trial and error."³The good doctor noticed that "the old phrase puts it that way because that is, in real life, the way it is done."⁴On any particular occasion marked by some sort of error, he goes on, "if it is a lucky day, and a lucky laboratory, somebody makes a mistake: the wrong buffer, something in one of the blanks, a decimal misplaced in reading counts, the warm room off by a degree and a half," and the like.⁵No matter what the mistake, "when the results come in, something is obviously screwed up, and then the action can begin."⁶

Most of the contributors to this symposium regard the failure of the United States to ratify the Convention to be a diplomatic mistake, a failure in a blank, a misreading of the content of the document, or the result of life in an overheated domestic atmosphere that "screwed up" the intended result: the ratification and employment of the Convention in domestic life and international affairs. Thomas provides guidance for what happens in the aftermath:

The misreading is not the important error; it opens the way. The next step is the crucial one. If the investigator can bring himself to say, "But even so, look at that!" then the new finding, whatever it is, is ready for snatching. What is needed, for progress to be made, is the move based on the error.⁷

Most of the contributors to this symposium find themselves in the company of those who would like to "snatch" something from the debris and make some sort of progress.⁸

These papers grew out of a conference on the consequences of the United States' refusal to ratify the Convention in question. The conference participants realized how apparently final the situation was when former President Jimmy Carter, an advocate for the Convention and the stimulant for the conference on which this symposium is based, ruefully acknowledged that the possibility of seeing the United States ratify the Convention was hopeless in the envisionable future.⁹Since he is a person of hope, that observation colored the discussions at the conference just as it shadows most of the papers in this special issue. A word of background is necessary:

On October 14, 2003, President Carter appeared at a forum on the question, "What Happens to Children in Peril?"¹⁰He issued a challenge to the audience which included several hundred Emory University School of Law students and faculty. Paraphrasing his question that day: Could not one law school in the nation put energy into the effort to see the Convention ratified? Some of the leadership at one law school, which happened to be Emory, resolved to respond to that question: "Yes, this one could." It did. The conference and this symposium on "What's Wrong with Rights for Children?" were part of that response. It was quite appropriate that President Carter be invited back to this forum hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.

In that setting, President Carter pronounced the possibility of seeing the ratification as hopeless.¹¹Did he appear as the Duke of York, who "marched his men up the hill one day, and marched them down again?" Hardly. He strenuously promised to support those who, against all odds, would work to get a President of the United States to advance the Convention to the U.S. Senate, which must advise and consent on all treaties. President Carter followed this note of realism with a discussion of how, by following up on the concerns of the Convention and by moving the nation ahead on the basis of its logic, children's rights might nevertheless advance.

President Carter's keynote address highlighted the perils faced by children around the world and called for the promotion of children's rights-he did anything but throw the proverbial "wet blanket" on the proceedings. The other speakers proceeded apace, offering analyses, criticism in some cases, and often positive suggestions designed to demonstrate that President Carter's original challenge was still before them and that his realistic appraisal was not a deterrent to further thought and action. The conference and this collection of papers fit very well into the "But even so, look at that!" model of Dr. Thomas.

"Look at that!" is a colloquial expression of the command "Behold!", which is a translation of the Greek word ?e??ίa, theoria, or theory. Rather

Children Draws Carter's Support, Oct. 31, 2005, http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2005/ October/October%2031/CarterRights.htm. than gape at the Convention, the failure to ratify, and the renewed challenge of President Carter, the contributors to this symposium moved on to engage the theory of children's rights. This theorizing was in part political: It was asked why the Convention was acceptable to 192 sovereignties in the United Nations but unacceptable to one. Some contributors asked how one changes the culture and political scene to bring about acceptance. However, more contributors theorized about the way in which children's rights relate to existing understandings of the child and the rights of others. In particular, most theoretical energy went into discussions of how to advance and assure the rights of children, using the substance of the Convention, and supplementing it, somewhat along the lines of what President Carter had suggested.

II. PUTTING THE CONVENTION TO WORK: "LOOK AT THAT!"

A. Spreading Knowledge of What is in the Convention

Knowledge of what the Convention contains and contends is not something to be taken for granted. As Cynthia Price Cohen and T. Jeremy Gunn underscore, the United States has helped to draft a number of international agreements-as it did with the CRC¹²-and has ratified thousands of treaties.

However, the CRC is but one agreement of many; citizens cannot be expected to remain alert to all diplomatic, strategic, and moral moves made in their name. Without doubt, the majority of conference attendees were unfamiliar with the details of the document. The Carter-inspired occasion provided an agenda that offered an opportunity for the speakers, writers, and many attendees to familiarize themselves with the Convention.

Each contributor likely found some surprises in the Convention's pages and had their choice of themes to emphasize. Thus, President Carter picked up on the word "everywhere" to stimulate imaginations about the global reach implied when anyone, in this case citizens of the United States, want to ensure and enlarge the scope of rights.¹³Others, such as Howard Davidson, examined the effect of ratification on the legal status of American children.¹⁴Johan D. van der Vyver, Jaap E. Doek, and T. Jeremy Gunn stressed international perspectives, the employment of which might enhance U.S. understandings and practices with respect to children and family.¹⁵

The narrative background by Cynthia Price Cohen is excellent for framing the issues.¹⁶She speaks of the trials and tribulations of ratification of conventions in the United States. She makes no secret of the fact that she and others like her coworker, Martin Scherr, who also presented remarks, would like this narrative to serve as a rallying cry to draw new supporters into the fray. This call comes against the background of public ignorance about the very existence of the CRC. Indifference and ignorance are as much the enemies as the focused opponents themselves. Cohen and Scherr regard information and organization as keys to any future for the parties interested in ratification. Treaties fail, they note, because the United States pays so much attention to safeguarding states' rights. However, it is interesting to note that only twenty-one treaties have been rejected by the full Senate in all of

American history.¹⁷

Emory University School of Law has a long record of dealing with human rights across national boundaries. For example, conference co-convener, Johan D. van der Vyver, co-edited two volumes on religious human rights with John Witte, Jr., fellow law professor at Emory.¹⁸He and the other conference co-convener, T. Jeremy Gunn, have teamed up to address other important human rights and religious freedom topics.¹⁹The positive reception of those studies gave confidence that this focus on the rights...