The global embracing of children's rights, at least in theory, is illustrated by the almost global ratification over the past few decades of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC has undoubtedly established a strong foundation for the development of child rights at national, regional and international levels. Children's rights operate at the legal, policy and advocacy level creating enforceable legal claims, rights-based programmes and policy, and a space to recognise children as rights holders, with views that need to be heard and agency to make decisions. However, despite the substantial developments over the past 30 years, there remain significant limits as to the extent to which children are genuinely recognised as full human beings deserving of the same rights as adults. As Baroness Hale, President of the UK Supreme Court, recently noted: ‘[t] he law still has trouble seeing children as real people’ (Hale, 2018).

This chapter critically assesses existing international human rights mechanisms and in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in relation to the promotion of the rights and welfare of children. In doing so it examines such mechanisms in a world of social, economic, cultural, ideological and political diversity, different levels of ‘peace’, stability, governmental organisation and conflict, and changing contexts and circumstances. It reflects on the inability of some states (such as the USA) to ratify the UN Convention, and on issues of enforceability and realisability in others which have. Finally, it discusses contemporary attempts by NGOs and other campaigning organisations to promote the recognition and realisation of universal rights for children.

UNCRC: a children's rights framework

The development of approaches to ‘saving children’ from work, poverty and other social harms first coalesced in the context of the ‘childsaving movement’ (Platt, 1969) in the nineteenth century. Today's children's rights approach has moved a long way from a paternalistic and charitable desire to protect children.