How to improve the current system of international childrens' rights?

November 24, 2015 7:03 AM

What could be done to improve the international system of human rights with regard to protecting and furthering the rights of children and youth? What challenges currently exist with the capacity of international institutions that protect childhood rights?

I'm getting started with applying to a graduate program that studies the interrelationships between human rights treaties, organizations, enforcement, access and protections. That is to say, the graduate program delves into the legal and institutional structures that can be used to safeguard and advance human rights. I have been brainstorming ideas about what I'd like to narrow in on and I realized that a lot of the parts of my career that I've been the most proud of have been programs that help youth in the US.

To that end, I'm now brainstorming ideas for a thesis statement for the program's admission essay (it's not due for a couple months) and I'm a bit blocked in further narrowing down ideas. I've been poking around UNICEF and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's information to start. What do you think, Metafilter? Where else should I look for ideas to help answer how to improve the systems of childhood and youth rights that currently exist?

posted by Skwirl to Law & Government (6 answers total)

It's important, for one thing, to keep in mind that 'children's rights' doesn't and shouldn't exist off in its own little silo. For example: I work for an org that does international legal aid development, and although we are not a children's rights org per se, we make it a point to pay special attention to the unique needs of our juvenile clients, and lobby the governments we're working with to do the same.

These governments, by the way, all have laws which provide special protections to juvenile accused... but in practice, their legal systems usually just sort of ignore those laws. So the struggle isn't to get a good law passed; it's to get them to enforce the laws they already have. The program you're applying for sounds awesome in that it acknowledges that treaties and guaranteed rights are meaningless without enforcement and access. That's so huge now, in a time when so many governments feel the need to at least pay lip service to these universal rights we all supposedly have, while doing as little as possible to actually protect them.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:02 AM on November 24, 2015

Have you looked through the research interests of the faculty in the program? Hopefully some of them have written relevant stuff, and you can use their reference lists/bibliographies as a starting point for further reading. (If none of them have, then that's a red flag re whether this is the right program for you - but that's not the question you asked.)
posted by une_heure_pleine at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2015

Best answer: Additional UN projects include the 1990 World Summit for Children and also the Millennium Development Goals. The MDG was not exclusively focused on children, but many of the goals involve children.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the major legal treaty on the issue, but are you familiar with the United Nations generally? Children's rights are also addressed at the inter-governmental level, at bodies such as the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council (2006-Present, formerly the Human Rights Commission 1946-2006). In particular, the Council has a Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography. The job of a UN Special Rapporteur is to research the designated issues of the mandate and produce research reports for governments and the general public.

If you've done some research on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, you may have noticed that the United States is literally the only UN Member State in the world to have not ratified the treaty. You could likely find and read up on the many human rights NGOs that are lobbying the US to sign and ratify it.

NYU Law professor Philip Alston is one the world's leading experts on international human rights law; children's rights happens to be one of his main areas of focus.

Also, it may help to compartmentalize the issue of children's rights. In general, some of the main areas of concern include child soldiers, child labour, and the sexual exploitation of children.

One specific book I'd recommend, which is very popular in university courses on human rights, is Michael Goodhart, Human Rights Politics and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2013). Chapter 12 addresses specifically children's rights. And like many textbooks, each chapter concludes with a section on further reading.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 5:05 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

On preview, if you are interested in the Special Rapporteur, visit this link here rather than the one I erroneously posted above.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 5:08 PM on November 24, 2015

A couple of days ago Radio New Zealand's Insight covered NZ's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child: What More Can be Done for Children?
posted by XMLicious at 8:12 PM on November 24, 2015

You may already know that the US is the only country yet to ratify th UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Delving into that could make for a pretty interesting thesis statement.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 2:06 AM on November 25, 2015