The right to respect for family life is one of the most important and closely protected rights that children possess. It is widely recognised that loving, secure and stable relationships with trusted carers are fundamental to a child’s well-being and development. Family relationships are also vital to a child’s sense of identity and place in the world. Despite the importance of the right to family life, its application in practice can undermine the very relationships that it seeks to protect. The mutual nature of the right to family life means that it is particularly susceptible to attempts by adults to clothe their own interests in the language of children’s rights. This chapter explores the right to family life and the extent to which it protects biological relatedness, legal parenthood and practical relationships of care and responsibility. Particular attention is given to child arrangements disputes, adoption and post-adoption with birth families.

One of the most important aspects of human rights law for children is the recognition that the state has positive obligations to protect them from harm, including harm suffered in the home. Child protection is one of the most important areas for protecting children’s rights, but also one of the most difficult. As well as the right to protection from harm, children and parents also have a right to protection of their family life together. This chapter considers the extent to which the law and process of child protection protect the rights of children at risk from harm. It considers the importance of supporting families and the difficulty of deciding when to intervene. It then considers child protection proceedings and the extent to which children’s rights are protected in the law concerning child protection orders. Finally, it considers children’s own perspectives and the extent to which they are heard in the process.

This chapter introduces the theoretical literature concerning children’s rights. Although there is now widespread international agreement that children possess human rights, the theoretical underpinning of those rights is often said to be under-theorised. Further, sceptics have questioned whether children’s rights undermine their interests and the central place of the family in protecting those interests. This chapter addresses these debates, considering the theoretical basis on which children hold rights, the content of those rights and the connection between moral rights and international human rights law.

This chapter considers children’s evolving capacities, particularly during adolescence. The law must value adolescence, while also recognising the risks it may entail. The chapter starts by reviewing some of the extensive body of research on children’s developing capacity for decision-making and explores how it might inform the law on adolescence. The chapter then considers the legal principles governing the relationship between adolescents and their parents. That law is ambivalent both over the extent of parental authority and the circumstances in which mature adolescents should be recognised as having the ability to make decisions over their own lives, regardless of the views of their parents. The chapter concludes by considering the application of these general principles in the fraught context of deprivation of liberty. The law’s confused approach to adolescent decision-making and parental authority leaves adolescents at risk of being deprived of this most important of rights without access to the legal safeguards that protect adults. This area of law is an excellent example of the practical consequences of the law’s ambivalence on adolescent autonomy and the role of parents.

While the law has developed greater protection for the growing competence of adolescents, they have not been recognised as autonomous in the same way as adults. This difference in treatment is especially clear in medical decision-making. The law has been willing to accord young people the right to consent to treatment in their best interests, but has been far more reluctant to accept full adolescent autonomy, including the right to refuse such treatment. This chapter considers the assessment of young people’s competence to make decisions concerning their medical treatment. It then considers the authority of parents and courts to overrule adolescents’ decisions to refuse treatment. There are strong reasons to argue that parents should no longer have such authority, which is increasingly out of step with medical practice and developments in children’s rights. The jurisdiction of the courts to do so is well-established but will only provide an adequate safeguard if sufficient weight is placed on young people’s rights to bodily integrity and decision-making. The chapter concludes by considering the application of these principles in the context of adolescent’s use of contraception and abortion.

This chapter considers the rights of children who are looked after by local authorities. It is clear in both international law and domestic law that children are entitled to state care that protects their rights and promotes their welfare; yet too often the state has failed in its duties as corporate parent. This chapter starts by considering the obligations owed by the state to looked-after children, including the difficult tension between the need to respect their family relationships, but also to plan for a secure future for the child. It then considers children in residential settings. A long history of abuse in such settings demonstrates the failure to protect many children from further abuse and exploitation. The rights of children in care are further at risk from the acute shortage of suitable placements, particularly for children with complex needs who are deprived of their liberty. The shortage of proper provision for these children means that many are accommodated in circumstances that not only fail to meet their needs, but are also degrading and dangerous. The chapter concludes by considering the extent to which the state is accountable to children for failings in their care.

This chapter considers children’s right to education and the protection of children’s rights in a school environment. Despite the importance of education to children, their right to education and to participation in school is conspicuously absent from much legislation and policy concerning schools. This chapter considers the extent to which children are recognised as rights-holders at school. It starts by considering school attendance, truancy and the punitive approach to parents who are unable to secure their child’s regular attendance at school. It then considers pupil behaviour and school discipline. The prevalence of bullying and peer abuse in schools raises the importance of protecting the rights of affected pupils to an education in a safe environment that ensures that they are all respected. Responding to this behaviour also raises the rights of perpetrators, particularly in the context of school discipline, the use of force and power to search pupils. The chapter then considers the law on exclusion and the right to education. Finally, it considers the extent to which children have a right to attend sex education and the extent of parental right to object.

The question of how far the law should intervene in family life to protect children’s rights is controversial. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the primary responsibility of parents for their children and the value to children of being brought up in a family that nurtures and protects them. Nevertheless, the reverence given to the place of family also comes with risks to children. While parents are usually best placed to protect their children’s interests, the privacy of family life allows parents to tyrannise, abuse and neglect their children. Legal and political responses are often strongly influenced by notions of family privacy and parental autonomy that discourage interference with family life and instead promote the authority of parents, leaving children vulnerable in the private sphere of the family. This chapter explores the ambivalent current law on parental responsibilities and the rights of children. This is best seen in the law on physical punishment, where parental freedom is prioritised despite substantial evidence of its harmful effects and recognition of children’s right to equal protection from assault in international law.

The law treats older adolescents in a confusing and inconsistent manner. The age at which teenagers acquire legal capacity to make decisions for themselves is governed by a hotchpotch of rules that appear to have little coherent policy underlying them. There has been a noticeable shift towards protecting older children from the risks and responsibilities of adult life. The age at which an adolescent might marry, purchase cigarettes or leave education and training, has increased to delay such decisions until adulthood. Despite the tendency to extend the restrictions of childhood for such decisions, there is also a case for lowering the age at which older young people can participate in other areas of adult life, such as participation in elections. The inconsistent legal treatment of 16- and 17-year-olds causes particular difficulties for those who are unable to remain safely at home. In many ways, the law treats this group as children, expecting them to remain dependent on their parents and limiting their ability to forge an independent life, yet those who leave home are not given the protection and care afforded to younger children.