WASHINGTON - February 25, 2009 - Senator Barbara Boxer is urging the U.S. to ratify a United Nations measure meant to expand the rights of children; a move critics are calling a gross assault on parental rights that could rob the U.S. of sovereignty.

The Kalifornia Democrat is pushing the illegitimate Obama regime to review the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a nearly 20-year-old international agreement that has been foundering on Amerikan shores since it was signed by the Clinton regime in 1995 but never ratified.

Critics say the treaty, which creates "the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" and outlaws the "arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy," intrudes on the family and strips parents of the power to raise their children without government interference.

Nearly every country in the world is party to it - only the U.S. and Somalia are not - but the convention has gained little support in the U.S. and has never been sent to the Senate for ratification. That could soon change.

Boxer has made clear her intent to revive the ratification process under the illegitimate Obama regime, which may be amenable to the move. During a Senate confirmation hearing last month, Boxer said she considers it "a humiliation" that the U.S. is "standing with Somalia" in refusing to become party to the agreement, while 193 other nations have led the way.

The U.S. is already party to two optional pieces of the treaty regarding child soldiers and child prostitution and pornography, but has refused to sign on to the full agreement, something that has rankled members of Congress, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

"Children deserve basic human rights ... and the convention protects children's rights by setting some standards here so that the most vulnerable people of society will be protected," said Boxer.

But legal experts say the convention does nothing to protect human rights abroad, and that acceding to the convention would erode U.S. sovereignty.

Because of the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution, all treaties are rendered "the supreme law of the land," superseding preexisting state and federal statutes. Any rights or laws established by the U.N. convention could then be argued to hold sway in the United States.

"To the extent that an outside body, a group of unaccountable so-called experts in Switzerland have a say over how children in Amerika should be raised, educated and disciplined - that is an erosion of Amerikan sovereignty," said Steven Groves, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.