1 Why the United States Needs a National Children! s Rights Ombudsperson Brian Gran 1 Forthcoming in The Roles of Independent Children’s Rights Institutions in Advancing Human Rights of Children. Agnes Lux and Brian Gran (editors). Please do not quote or cite without author’s permission. ABSTRACT This chapter asks whether the United States would benefit from establishment of a national ICRI. This chapter begins with insights into why the United States has not established a national ICRI. Although about half of the fifty U.S. states have set up children! s rights ombudspersons, most of these state-level do not focus on rights of all children and their efforts are not coordinated. This chapter discusses what ICRIs do and what their essential qualities are, then seeks to demonstrate that an ICRI will meet needs of American children and their rights. This chapter suggests that a national U.S. ICRI can participate in international activities around children! s rights, which will advance rights and interests of American children. Key words: Children, Ombudsperson, children’s rights, education, juvenile justice, United States, political power, institutionalism INTRODUCTION Despite the tremendous needs of her children, the United States has not established a national independent children! s rights institution (ICRI). This failure may be due to the fact that the United States Government is the only UN member party to sign, but not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC; Gran 2021, 2009). As contributors to this book have demonstrated, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked that States Parties to the UNCRC, effectively every UN member, establish a national ICRI. A UNICEF (2012) project on children! s ombudspersons found that while national ICRIs have been established all over the world, not every national government has set up an ICRI. Critics suggest that the United States is unwilling to make international commitments for protecting children and enforcing their rights (Gran 2008; Rothschild 2017). This criticism, however, may be exaggerated. The U.S. Government has ratified two optional protocols to the UNCRC, discussed below, indicating U.S. willingness to enforce international treaties on children! s rights. This chapter employs ideas from political sociology, organizational sociology, and law and society scholarship to examine explanations of this failure as well as why the United States should establish a national ICRI. This chapter discusses how a national ICRI would collaborate with state- level ICRIs as well as with the United Nations and its Committee on the Rights of the Child. While 1 The author thanks Agnes Lux and Robin Shura for their generous feedback and advice. Errors belong to the author.