In the land of opportunity, he nearly fell through the cracks.

At the age of 16, a young man identified only as "Will" wanted to get a high-school diploma -- but found himself stuck in a place where his classmates were still putting two and two together. Will was in an adult in the Washington, D.C., prison system, serving time for an unspecified crime.

"I realized that if I didn't change my ways, I would be falling into a cycle … going back to jail and being used to it," he told the crowd assembled at Gewirz Student Center on Nov. 16. "I didn't want that for my life."

But the education offered to him in jail, he said, didn't work for him. "I lost that right to get an education … They were telling me that I was really not made for a high-school diploma."

Will's address was part of the Colloquium on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) held at the Law Center. While the tale of one D.C. youth may not, initially, seem relevant to an international agreement, Will's story illustrates the universal need for what one section of the Convention aims to deliver -- the right to an education that enables a child to reach his or her full potential.

The treaty, which contains 42 articles relating to children's survival, development, protection and participation in society, turned 18 years old on Nov. 20. One hundred and ninety-three countries have ratified it; only Somalia and the United States have not.

"The U.S. is really in dire need for U.S. ratification," said Tom Kennedy, chair of the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The health care, poverty, abuse, education, infant mortality and firearm-related death statistics of this nation all demand it, he said.

And while other countries have ratified the Convention, they are less likely to implement it fully when the United States has not, he noted.

Provisions of the treaty may still be used as standards to guide policies and programs even in the absence of ratification. State statutes, administrative actions and court policies may be improved if they are modeled after provisions of the treaty. Local officials often endorse treaty principles without even knowing it. Actively using the principles from the treaty may give their arguments even greater weight.

Dave Marsden of the Virginia House of Delegates; Tommy Wells of the District of Columbia City Council; and John Folkemer, Maryland's Medicaid director, discussed how their respective jurisdictions are faring in the areas of health, education and juvenile justice. Mai Fernandez of the Latin American Youth Center encouraged ideas from program participants on how to make the U.N. Convention ratification a reality in this country.

A November 2006 Newsweek poll, she noted, indicated that Americans are most concerned about issues such as the Iraq war, the economy and terrorism. There were 625 people killed worldwide in terrorist attacks in 2003, she noted; yet 903,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in the United States in 2001.

"If you're not [D.C. Mayor] Adrian Fenty and you're not the Supreme Court, what can you do?" Fernandez asked. "Each one, teach one …Please tell one other person about the CRC and what it means, and how it can be the gold standard in your communities."

Kennedy noted that a major fear preventing U.S. ratification is the belief that the treaty poses a threat to parental authority.

"A close and honest examination of the Convention demonstrates the opposite," he said. "If you are able to spend a little time [reading the document] you can see how central the family is to this Convention."

Georgetown-based co-sponsors of the colloquium are the Law Center, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, the Center for Child and Human Development and the psychology department. External sponsors include the Campaign for Youth Justice, the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

-- By Ann W. Parks

(November 23, 2007)