[ceejayoz]

Being in this sort of shitty company is pretty common for the US when it comes to human rights treaties.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/17/america_the_e...

There isn't a "US's stated reason for not signing". Instead, there's lot of "yeah that'd be great, we'll get on that later" from the various administrations, and what sounds like paranoid whining from religious conservatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_ratification_of_the_Conventi...

> On 16 February 1995, Madeleine Albright, at the time the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, signed the Convention. However, though generally supportive of the Convention, President Bill Clinton did not submit it to the Senate. Likewise, President Bush did not submit the Convention to the Senate. President Barack Obama has described the failure to ratify the Convention as 'embarrassing' and has promised to review this. The Obama administration has said that it intends to submit the Convention to the Senate, but there is no set timeline for it.

[xenophanes]

That's interesting. It's hard to tell what the actual reason is, which is bad. I'm skeptical of UN treaties in general, but I think if the US doesn't sign it should say why, clearly and proudly. It's tricky, though, because I imagine Bush and Clinton have different reasons for reaching the same conclusion of not signing.

[dragonwriter]

As noted in GP: the US did sign in 1995 -- it is therefore impossible to give a reason for not signing it. It hasn't been submitted for ratification, likely because there have always been more than a 1/3 of the Senate that could be counted on to vote against it making it unratifiable.