The United States government played an active role in the drafting of the Convention and signed it on 16 February 1995, but has not ratified it. The Convention is unlikely to be ratified in the near future because it forbids both the death penalty and life imprisonment for children (Article 37),[1] even though a state can legitimately ratify subject to reservations or interpretations. It has been claimed that opposition to the Convention stems primarily from political and religious conservatives.[47] For example, the Heritage Foundation sees it as threatening national control over domestic policy[48] and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) argues that the CRC threatens homeschooling.[49] Since 2005 Supreme Court decisions found juvenile executions unconstitutional as "cruel and unusual punishment"[50][51][52] and that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders.[53]
State laws regarding the practice of closed adoption may also require overhaul in light of the Convention's position that children have a right to identity from birth.
President Barack Obama has described the failure to ratify the Convention as "embarrassing" and had promised to review this.[54][55] The United States has signed and ratified two of the optional protocols to the Convention,[11][12] the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography