Hannah Lu[1]
As of this writing, there have been eight school shootings in the United States since 2018 started[2] and there have been 290 school shootings in the United States since 2013[3]. Between the years 2013-15, 85 of these shootings have occurred at K-12 schools.[4]
In November 1989, practically every member of the United Nations signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a human rights treaty that sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children. I learned about this treaty when I was in primary school in Hong Kong. 196 members of the United Nations are party to the convention. The United States is not.
CRC Article 3 states
“in all action concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institution courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.
Article 19:
“State’s parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s), or any other person who has the care of the child.”
The United States (while it has not ratified the treaty, it remains a signatory) is in violation of these articles through its negligence to properly and adequately protect children from gun violence while they are at school. [Editor’s note: this assumes these articles are now part of customary international law, so that the United States is bound by these principles although it has not ratified the CRC.] The failure to pass any gun reform legislation on both a federal and state level is not just a failure on the part of the government to its children but a violation of their human rights. The negligence and inability to pass gun reform legislation mean that the United States has both failed to consider the best interests of its children but also that it has failed to protect them from physical and mental violence. The State Department’s website says that “the protection of fundamental human rights was a foundation stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago”[5]. The question now is when will the United States address those foundational rights?
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[1] Class of 2018, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (and daughter of the Monitor).
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/school-shootings-in-america-2018-how-many-so-far
[3] https://everytownresearch.org/school-shootings/
[4] https://everytownresearch.org/reports/analysis-of-school-shootings/
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