Children’s Rights, Critiques of

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the major guiding force for the implementation of children’s rights. As soon as it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, the convention was quickly ratified by all the nation-states in the world, except the United States and Somalia. For the past 30 years, the UNCRC has proved to be a key referent for nation-states for the interpretation of children’s rights in policy, programme, and law enforcement. There is no doubt that the UNCRC has provided much-needed impetus to the children’s rights movement, which recognises children as full human beings in their own right. In fact, the convention has changed the perspective of children’s rights as an issue of justice ...