The U.S. and the International Children's Rights Crusade: Leader or Laggard?

This article examines the global impact of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and questions why the US has not been a signatory. The ambivalent history of children's rights in the United States is reviewed with special attention to the unique situation of child slavery and other legal forms of child servitude for the first two hundred years. The recent legal controversies over children's participatory rights and privacy are also examined within the context of the Convention.