The Rights of the Child
Credits
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15
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Module Convenor
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Ralph Sandland
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Term Offered
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Autumn
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Assessment
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Essay
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The biggest question behind international child law is why it should even exist in the first place. Why doesn’t the general law, for example human rights law, simply apply to children as it applies to adults? To pose the question in a different form: what is lost or gained through the construction of ‘the child’ by law as being distinct from ‘the adult’? Is there a danger that, in having special law designed to protect children, children will be damaged or disadvantaged? It is certainly the case that international child law, in the form of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, starts from the proposition that children have ‘interests’ rather than ‘rights’. This module treats such questions as problematic, and as relevant not merely for the protection of the rights of children but also for the legal construction of the subject more generally.
It is easy enough, however, to explain the motivation behind the construction of special law for children. Children face particular, status-related, risks of exploitation and abuse by virtue of their physical and intellectual disadvantage and their cultural disempowerment, and these risks are often magnified in times of political, social or cultural upheaval or dysfunction. The international community seeks to respond to these risks in a positive manner, using the United Nations Convention, and other regional and national laws, in pursuance of a long-term policy goal of the eradication of the exploitation or abuse of children. In this module we consider the success or otherwise of such policies in fields such as armed conflict and the labour market. We also consider the appropriate reach of law and policy in areas of cultural sensitivity, using a variety of topics including education rights and the practice of circumcision on children. As such the module can be considered as a discrete but fascinating area of international law and or as a case study analysing some of the perennial problems faced by international law generally in a unique and insight-full context.