The Convention on the Rights of the Child: International Law Support for Children (Studies in Human Rights)

198 Pages·1997·8.51 MB·English

by  A. Glenn Mower

THE CONVENTION ON
THE RIGHTS OF THE
CHILD
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THE CONVENTION ON
THE RIGHTS OF THE
CHILD
International
Law Support for
Children
A. Glenn Mower, Jr.
Studies in Human Rights, Number 17
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mower, A. Glenn (Alfred Glenn)
The Convention on the Rights of the Child : international law
support for children / A. Glenn Mower, Jr.
p. cm. — (Studies in human rights, ISSN 0146-3586 ; no. 17)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-313-30170-0 (alk. paper)
1. Children (International law) 2. Children—Legal status, laws,
etc. [ 1. Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)]
I. Series
K639.M69 1997
341.4-81—dc20 96-20675
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 1997 by A. Glenn Mower, Jr.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-20675
ISBN: 0-313-30170-0
ISSN: 0146-3586
First published in 1997
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
P
In order to keep this title in print and available to the academic community, this edition
was produced using digital reprint technology in a relatively short print run. This would
not have been attainable using traditional methods. Although the cover has been changed
from its original appearance, the text remains the same and all materials and methods
used still conform to the highest book-making standards.
Contents
Introduction vii
Acknowledgments ix
I
The Significance, Background, and
Development of the Convention
1 The Significance of the Convention 3
2 The Background and Development of the Convention 11
II
The Substance of the Convention
3 General Principles 23
4 The Right to Life 28
5 The Right to Survival and Development 31
6 The Right to Protection 40
7 Evaluation of the Convention's Substance 49
III
The Implementation of the Convention's Provisions
8 General Considerations 61
VI Contents
9 The Committee on the Rights of the Child 63
10 The Committee on the Rights of the Child at Work: Sessions 78
11 The Committee on the Rights of the Child at Work:
Conclusions and Recommendations 86
12 Evaluation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child 95
13 The Convention's Report System 101
14 The Report System in Operation 109
15 A Report System Case Study: The Sudan 126
IV
Prospects for the Realization of the Convention's Goals
16 Factors that Affect the Convention's Prospects 145
17 Additional Factors that Affect the Convention's Prospects 161
Conclusion 174
Bibliography 179
Index 183
Introduction
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989, after a ten-year
preparatory period, was opened for ratification January 26, 1990, and, by
September 2, 1990, had received the 20 ratifications required for its entry
into effect.
The convention appeared at a time when the need for improvement in
the status of the world's children was painfully apparent. It was a time
when:
100 million abandoned children were driven to resort to hard labor, petty crime,
prostitution, or begging in order to survive;
50 million children worked under unsafe or unhealthy conditions;
120 million children 6-11 years of age were not in school;
3.5 million children died annually from preventable or curable diseases;
155 million children under five years of age lived in absolute poverty; and
millions, including many in wealthier countries, were maltreated or neglected,
sexually exploited, or victims of drug abuse.1
It was a time when it could be concluded that "the reality is that no
country protects the rights of all its children or provides them with an
adequate standard of health care, education, day care, housing, and nutri
tion, or properly protects them from abuse, neglect, and exploitation."2
Vlll Introduction
It was, in short, a time that was ripe for some new steps to be taken to
serve and protect the well-being of children, that segment of society so
generally referred to as the most vulnerable.
As one such new step, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was
designed to fulfill the functions characteristic of international human
rights covenants with the added distinction of having these functions
directed toward a specific sector of the nations' citizenry that had not,
until this time, been so targeted: the child, defined in the convention as
every human being below the age of 18, unless a particular nation's laws
set an earlier age for the attaining of majority status.
The convention, thus, incorporates a set of agreed standards, in the
form of stipulated rights and freedoms to be enjoyed by all the world's
children; a formal, legal commitment of states parties to take such
measures as are necessary in order to bring the quality of their childrens'
lives as close as possible to that which is prescribed in the convention; and
mechanisms and procedures to monitor the performance of states parties
in relation to the convention's standards, in order to call attention to places
where corrective action is called for and to provide some guidance and
assistance to states parties desirous of improving their performance.
The present book looks at the convention in the light of these elements,
first presenting the significance, background, and development of the
convention and then describing and evaluating its substance and imple-
mentary mechanisms and procedures. The book concludes with comments
on the convention's impact as of the time of this writing and on the factors
that are most likely to determine how much progress can be expected
toward the realization of the goals it sets forth in the form of its statement
of children's rights and freedoms.
Special emphasis is given in this book to the system created to imple
ment the convention and the economic, social, and cultural rights it sets
forth — the rights that are most directly related to the everyday experience
of all the world's children.
Written in the middle of the 1990s, the book contains data and statistics
available and relevant at that time.
NOTES
1. Centre for Human Rights, The Rights of the Child (Fact Sheet No. 10)
(Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations, 1990), p. 2.
2. Kay Castelle, In the Child's Best Interest, 3rd ed. (New York: Defense
for Children International — U.S.A., 1990), p. 1.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the invaluable contribution made to
this book by members of the convention's Committee on the Rights of the
Child who responded anonymously to his questionnaire and by committee
member Thomas Hammarberg, who generously shared his knowledge of
and insights into the working of the committee through correspondence
and copies of his unpublished manuscripts and memos prepared by him
for the committee. The author also expresses warm appreciation for the
support, guidance, and encouragement he has received in his writing
efforts from James T. Sabin, executive vice president of the Greenwood
Publishing Group. No acknowledgments by the author would be complete
without affectionate mention of his wife, Anne, who for so many years
has been, and continues to be, the center and supreme joy of his life and of
his children, Judith Evelyn, Steven Alan, and Alfred Glenn, III, whose
names belong in this book dedicated to the child because of the many
ways in which they have enriched the author's life.