Political Rights of Children

This entry summarises key debates about children’s political rights, from ancient Greece to modern democracies. It outlines the justification for denying children political rights, and the arguments against such denial. It canvases the relationship between human rights, citizenship, and political rights as they relate to children. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recast the position of children within their societies, extending to them a range of human rights that had previously been the domain of adults or ambiguous in relation to children. The UNCRC is often presented as encompassing the full range of human rights: civil, political, social, economic, and cultural.

Although the UNCRC does entitle children to a range of human rights, including specific rights to protection from abuse and ...