Book contents
- A Magna Carta for Children?
- A Magna Carta for Children?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Hamlyn Trust
- The Hamlyn Lectures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Prelude
- Part I Is it Wrong to Think of Children as Human Beings?
- Part II Even Lawyers Were Children Once
- 3 The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Its Principles
- 4 The Convention: Norms and Themes
- 5 Enforcing Children’s Rights
- 6 Criticisms of the Convention
- 7 Beyond the Convention
- 8 Interlude: What We Can Learn from the Sociology of Childhood
- 9 Childhoods and Rights
- 10 Regional Children’s Rights
- 11 Child-Friendly Justice
- 12 The World Twenty-Five Years On: New Issues and Responses
- Part III A Magna Carta for Children
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - Childhoods and Rights
from Part II - Even Lawyers Were Children Once
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
- A Magna Carta for Children?
- A Magna Carta for Children?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Hamlyn Trust
- The Hamlyn Lectures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Prelude
- Part I Is it Wrong to Think of Children as Human Beings?
- Part II Even Lawyers Were Children Once
- 3 The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Its Principles
- 4 The Convention: Norms and Themes
- 5 Enforcing Children’s Rights
- 6 Criticisms of the Convention
- 7 Beyond the Convention
- 8 Interlude: What We Can Learn from the Sociology of Childhood
- 9 Childhoods and Rights
- 10 Regional Children’s Rights
- 11 Child-Friendly Justice
- 12 The World Twenty-Five Years On: New Issues and Responses
- Part III A Magna Carta for Children
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Is there one childhood or are there many? Were they over-ambitious or just naive in thinking they could draw up a single code for all the world’s children? Those who drafted the CRC seemed to assume there was a universal understanding of childhood. They should have realised very soon that this was not so when they couldn’t even agree when childhood began and when it ended. On the beginning of childhood, they sought refuge in an uncomfortable compromise which saw the Preamble recognising pre-natal life, and Article 1 on insisting on a definition of ‘child’ which says this begins on birth and not before. But without this compromise the Convention may have fallen at the first hurdle. Two interests, two dignities, are in conflict.
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- Information
- A Magna Carta for Children?Rethinking Children's Rights, pp. 264 - 269Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020