Abstract This article seeks to reconceptualise approaches to assessing children’s capacity, particularly in light of Article 5 of the crc , which enshrines the principle of the evolving capacities of the child. Professionals regularly assess children’s capacity, for example when doctors treat children, or when lawyers represent child clients. They usually do this assessment intuitively however, as there is little guidance on how assessment should work in practice. Medical law in England and Wales serves as a case study to examine law and practice as well as challenges in the area. It is concluded that it may not necessarily be possible objectively to measure children’s capacity, and it may need to be done intuitively. Yet it should be done via a process which is rights-based. An approach to children’s capacity is proposed through four concepts based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Autonomy, Evidence, Support and Protection.
In this article we argue that what is missing in children’s rights studies is not so much the presence of theories, but rather reflections and discussions about the normative relevance, analytical qualities and explanatory powers of the mobilised theories. We consider theorisations in children’s rights, first, on the normative level, where there is a need to continue reflecting about the moral and legal rights children have and/or should have, and about how these rights can be further exercised, or need to be balanced against one another. Next, we look at the analytical merits of the concept intersectionality to consider simultaneously differences and similarities between children’s rights and other categories of fundamental rights, as well as to reflect on the very categories that are employed. We then discuss empirical implications of globalisation processes, that have significantly impacted on how children’s rights are taking shape in the world, and how interconnections between local and global spheres shape imaginations, discourses, normative frameworks, policies and programmes in the field of children’s rights.
Human rights are under fire right across the world, not just from those who wish to avoid them but also from within the academic community, with many scholars challenging their value and efficacy.Informed criticism of this nature is healthy and welcome in any discipline.It is also not new to those who work in the field or pursue scholarship on children's rights: the question of whether children (can) have rights has been the subject of on-going discussion in legal theory (see, for example, Neil MacCormick's (1976) seminal article using children's rights as a "test case" for rights more generally) as have critiques of the content, meaning and efficacy of the human rights of children.However, I was recently told about a senior academic declaring to a post-doctoral researcher that he/she did not "believe" in children's rights as if the rights were somehow akin to the tooth fairy.A few years ago, a US scholar told me that he/she was a "parentalist" in much the same vein -a denial that children could and should be rights-holders.While that, of course, ignores the legal facts (and the public commitment of every United Nations member state, including the United States which has ratified two of the crc's Optional Protocols), it is indicative of a wider problem: it appears to be perfectly acceptable to deny that children are, should or can be rights-holders when there are very few who would publicly assert that they do not "believe" in human rights.The problem for child rights advocates and the academy community, as I see it, is that the reluctance of some to accept the notion that children have rights has generated a revised or alternative lexicon for talking about children's rights that is increasingly problematic.In short, child rights discourse is being substituted, truncated and diluted to a status that I have previously dubbed, child rights "lite" (Lundy, 2014).Discourses of children's rights have emerged that have the potential to undermine not just practice but scholarship and I am taking the opportunity Downloaded from Brill.
The 30 years since the enactment of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has seen extensive developments in the theory and practice of children’s rights. Children’s rights are now an established academic discipline with the study of children in conflict with the law being a fundamental area of analysis. This paper takes the approach of highlighting three areas of development of children’s rights scholarship in relation to the criminal justice system: children’s rights, developmental science and notable themes emerging from cross-national scholarship, including age limits, diversion, effective participation and deprivation of liberty. In addition, it analyses three gaps or challenges which are “left in the too-hard basket” for the coming decades.
Abstract Do children suffer from discriminatory structures in society and how can issues of social injustice against children be conceptualised and studied? The conceptual frame of childism is examined through everyday expressions in the aftermath of policies affecting children in Sweden, the UK and Ireland to develop knowledge of age-based and intersectional discrimination against children. While experiences in Sweden seem to indicate that young children rarely suffer severe symptoms from covid-19, or constitute a driving force in spreading the virus, policy decisions in the UK and Ireland to close down schools have had detrimental effects on children in terms of child hunger and violence against children. Policy decisions that have prioritised adults at the cost of children have unveiled a structural injustice against children, which is mirrored by individual examples of everyday societal prejudice.
Abstract Children’s rights are set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This systematic literature review aimed to investigate children’s views of children’s rights, at a broad level. Nine papers were included, from a range of countries and contexts. They all accessed the views of children and young people (aged up to 18 years). A content analysis was carried out using a recursive process of hybrid aggregative-configurative synthesis, and themes within children’s views and factors that may affect these were identified. These were ‘awareness of rights’, ‘value placed on (importance of) rights’, ‘impact of having/not having rights fulfilled’, ‘realisation and respect of rights’, ‘equality of rights’, ‘identifying and categorising of rights’, and ‘factors that may affect children’s views’. These were developed into a progression of rights realisation and implications for practice and further research were considered.
Abstract Children have a right to have their views sought and given due weight on all matters affecting them, including at times of emergency and crisis. This article describes the process and findings of the ground-breaking CovidUnder19 survey (“Life Under Coronavirus”) which was co-designed with children for children, capturing the experiences of over 26,000 children in 137 countries as to the realisation of their human rights during the first six months of the covid-19 pandemic. Key findings are discussed through the lens of the crc’ s four general principles, read alongside children’s rights, inter alia, to education, play and to be protected from harm. It argues that governments and public bodies should have sought children’s views – not just because they were under an obligation to do so – but because such engagement, now and in crises to come, provides an early warning system that enables decision-makers to mitigate some of the adverse consequences of their responses for children and their rights.
Since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, research into children’s rights issues in educational contexts has grown significantly. This paper takes stock of the evolution of educational children’s rights research, and provides a characterisation of the research field. By means of a systematic analysis of the published scholarship, the main achievements of the research are identified, as well as gaps in knowledge production. Major research foci are highlighted, the theoretical and methodological characteristics of the field are demonstrated, and concerns are identified. Based on the insights gained from analysis of the research field, future prospects are identified and discussed, and some possible routes forward for educational children’s rights research are suggested.
Although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises procedural rights of the child in addition to substantive rights, it is rather silent on the fundamental right to an effective remedy. The concept of access to justice for children has nevertheless emerged in the past decades and manifested itself firmly in the international human rights and sustainable development agendas. Access to justice is grounded in the right of the child to seek remedies in case of (alleged) rights violations. It implies legal empowerment of children and access to justice mechanisms and remedies that are child-sensitive. So far, access to justice, with a specific focus on children, lacks careful consideration, conceptualisation and contextualisation in academic research and writing. This contribution explores the meaning of access to justice for children, as a right and procedural concept, and paves the way for the development of a more specific research and implementation agenda.
The phrase “evolving capacities of the child” appears twice in the uncrc, under articles 5 and 14(2) in the framework of parental guidance. Yet the term “evolving capacities” appears over 80 times in the General Comments of the crc Committee. This paper examines the Committee’s use of “evolving capacities” in its General Comments, suggesting that the term has been treated as an enabling principle, an interpretative principle, and a policy principle within the framework of the uncrc. A broad principle of evolving capacities has thus emerged under the uncrc that informs not only the framework of parental guidance, but the whole of the Convention. However, the crc Committee does not recognise “evolving capacities” as a general principle or otherwise under the uncrc. This paper examines why this might be, and concludes that more consideration needs to be given to the role of “evolving capacities” as a principle under the uncrc.
