The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has been widely criticised but also hailed as an
important means to improve children�s lives. Discuss the different views of the convention,
2
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has been widely criticized but
also hailed as an important means to improve children’s lives. Discuss the different views of
the convention.
Following a decade of negotiations, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC) in 1989. This marked the first international
legal instrument for recognizing the basic rights and freedoms of children. The 1989 attempted to
get rid of the perceptions in different parts of the world that children are mere possessions. The
Convention also indicated its recognition of the significant role that parents and families play in
the provision of the best environment for the growth of children. 1
The CRC has been identified as the international legal instrument with the highest record of
ratifications by UN countries. So far, the treaty has been ratified by 193 nations. With regard to
UN member states, it is only the United States and Somalia that have not ratified the treaty.
Following the ratification of the Convention, the Party State is required to ensure that its
provisions are implemented. Accordingly, the state has to take up relevant administrative as well
as legislative measures for purposes of implementing CRC’s provisions.
The Declaration of Geneva of 1924, which was adopted by the League of Nations, and the
United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1959 preceded the CRC. These two
non-binding legal instruments basically cover social and economic rights. The 1924 instrument
basically provided for the most fundamental needs of the child, and it called on State Parties to
recognize them. The 1959 United Nations Declaration also provided for the physical welfare of
1 Tomas, C. “Childhood and Rights: Reflections on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
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the child and additionally for the prohibition of discrimination against the child on grounds of
race, property, social or national origin, political or other opinion, language, sex, color, birth or
any other status. The Declaration further provided for the right of a child to a name and
nationality. There are also other international legal instruments with provisions for the rights of
the children, some of which apply to “everyone” while others provide explicitly for the children.
One of such instruments is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Since the time it was adopted up to date, the CRC has greatly played an important role with
regards to the protection of the rights of the children in many different countries as governments
have made efforts to implement their obligations under the Convention. The Convention
provides a comprehensive approach for the protection of children rights; in the sense that it
amalgamates civil and political, cultural, social, and economic rights in one human rights
instrument. CRC’s inclusion of civil and political rights of the child is of great importance owing
to the fact that these rights need immediate implementation, unlike social, economic and cultural
rights that merely need programmatic or progressive implementation. This implies that although
states need to take measures to ensure the implementation of economic and social rights of the
children, they can only stretch to the extent that the internal resources can allow. This aspect of
progressive implementation has been generally set out in Article 4 of the CRC, and it has also
been reflected with regards to such other rights as the right to education provided under Article
- 2
According to Article 3, every decision made by the government or an adult needs to consider the
best interests of the child. The overriding obligation of State Parties is provided under Article 4
which requires them to put up appropriate administrative and legislative measures to ensure that
2 Some states such as Tunisia and Oman have made reservations with regard to these provisions.
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the provisions of the Convention are implemented. The Convention also imposes a duty on
parents and care givers as well as local and international NGOs, UN agencies, the media and the
judiciary to take contribute to the promotion and protection of children’s rights.
The governments which have ratified the Convention have indicated in reports their
commitments in allowing children to grow effectively in an environment without hunger,
without violence, without poverty, and without any other injustices or hardships. These injustices
can be avoided through the promotion and protection of the political, cultural, civil, economic,
and social rights of the children.
Most of the provisions under the CRC exclusively cover the needs of the children by virtue of
them being children and not adults. These rights and freedoms are established from the fact that
children do not have the capacity protect themselves or to provide for themselves. Children do
not have the ability to survive on their own without having a supportive environment. Article 27
of the CRC obliges Party States to acknowledge the rights of all children to adequate living
standards required for their physical, social, moral, spiritual, and mental development.
According to Article 33, Party States should adopt necessary measures for protecting the child
from illicit drug use. Several other provisions in the Act require Party States to adopt necessary
measures for purposes of protecting children from such harms as exploitation at work, sexual
exploitation, and sexual abuse. In almost all situations, these harms against which children are
protected from are also harms from which adults need protection. However, it is claimed that
children have a special need for protection due to the fact that they are not mentally and
economically capacitated, making them more vulnerable to harms.
5
The greatest point of weakness for the CRC is with regard to the implementation of its
provisions. The Committee on the Rights of the Child is a UN institution which was established
with the mandate of ensuring compliance with CRC’s obligations. The Committee is now
properly constituted and it has ensured that State Parties submit reports with regards to the
manner in which they are implementing the provisions of the Convention as provided under
Article 43. 3 The Committee is further charged with the responsibility to devise and recommend
most appropriate methods for implementing the Convention, to come up with particular
recommendations, and to provide necessary assistance and technical advice. Nevertheless, the
CRC is still perceived to be in its childhood phases as an international legal instrument, due to
the fact that it does not have sufficient jurisprudence as to the proper interpretation of its
provisions. Due to the lack of this jurisprudential guidance, the State Parties do not have a clear
picture of what they should do or omit to ensure that the obligations under the Convention are
met. As a result, it has proven difficult for the Committee to ensure that the implementation is
monitored meaningfully.
There are also various challenges presented to CRC with regard to the resolution of other
differences in national and cultural contexts. For instance, Article 17, which provides for
children and social communication means, ignited a complex debate due to the defense by
western delegates of a formulation that allowed for free flow of information. From the
perspective of these delegates, Article 17 would play an important democratic role in the fight
against the censorship as well as the regulation of information, in addition to recognizing the
privacy of certain information (Hammarberg, 1999). Nevertheless, this is not the view taken by
3 Save the Children. (2007). “Reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: A Starter Pack Country
Programmes.” <http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/sites/default/files/documents/3460.pdf> accessed 28 April
2015.
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all other Partner States. It is also not clear as to whom the responsibility of developing
implementation guidelines is vested. The CRC only provides the guidelines and requires the
Partner States to follow them. According to Hammarberg (1999) 4 , the insufficiency of clarity in
the Convention portrays the Convention as a mere invitation for discussing objects and not a
prescription of the required implementation methods.
There has also been concern with regards to the fact that Party States frequently delay in
delivering their reports to the UN Committee. According to the Commission of Human Rights
(Working Group on Human Rights of Children) 5 , there has been a failure on the part of the
Convention with regard to fulfilling its objectives as the main body for securing human rights.
The Commission further pointed out that the CRC had only achieved a few objectives, and that
the inadequacy of its results was because of the lack of interest by the Party States in discussing
human rights in such states where the political, economic and cultural interests of the people are
at stake.
As a result of this, various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as well as other observers
have questioned the legitimacy of the CRC Committee. These observers have contended that by
virtue of membership to the Committee, it is not a guarantee that the members will resort to self-
regulation mechanisms that adhere to the provisions of the CRC. Thus, according to the NGOs, it
is imperative that proper reforms are initiated with regards to the operation of the UN Committee
such as establishing better and stricter requisites for membership. The NGOs criticized the
intentions of the Party States in ratifying the treaty since some of these states such as Zimbabwe,
4 Hammarberg, T. (1999). ‘Criancas e Influencias Novicas da Midia. O significado da Convencao da ONU’. In U.
Carlsson and C.von Feilitzen….
5 This was during the 60 th session that took place in Geneva in 2004.
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Sri Lanka, China, the Russian Federation, Nepal, and Sudan have been involved in serious
human rights violation allegations.
Besides the issues of interpretation, the CRC has also been criticized for its procedural
shortcomings which partly explain the hurdles existing in light of its full promotion and
guarantees. 6 Furthermore, there is tension among the ten Committee members as regards the
number of meetings that they should hold annually. The meetings are held only bi-annually and
they only analyze a maximum of five reports in a year, leading into further delays in analyzing
the submitted reports. Consequently, there have been recommendations for the need to increase
the number of the Committee members to eighteen. 7
In addition to implementation issues, despite the exceptional number of states that ratified the
Convention, it is still not effectively applied due to the fact that a significant percentage of the
Party States have also included reservations against all applications of the Convention that have
inconsistencies with the provisions of either internal legal instruments or Islam. 8 Such countries
as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Malaysia, Iran, Kuwait, Djibouti, and Brunei Darussalam
have entered into reservations with regard to inconsistencies of the provisions of Convention to
Islamic principles. Countries that have reserved some provisions of the Convention on grounds
of their local laws or constitution include Syria, Oman, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kuwait, and Brunei
Darussalam. The CRC Committee and other State Parties have widely objected these
6 Gareth, A. (2005) “Children and development: rights, globalization and poverty”. Progress in Development Studies
5(4), 336-342.
7 Todres, J. (1998). Emerging Limitations on the Rights of the Child: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
and Its Early Case Law. Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 30 (1959).
8 Ramesh, A. (2001). UN Convention on Rights of the Child: Inherent Weaknesses. Economic and Political Weekly,
36(22) <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4410687?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106617042383> last accessed 28
April 28, 2015
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reservations due to the fact that they are against the objectives and purpose of the Convention,
and that they contravene Article 19 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. 9
In conclusion, it is evident that the CRC is a very important international legal instrument for
unifying the laws regarding the promotion and protection of the rights of the child. This
convention is a mark of the international milestone of utmost significance with the highest
number of states having ratified it. In addition, the Convention symbolically represents the era
global awakening whereby the entire global community has shown its consciousness towards the
promotion and protection of the rights of the children. However, regardless of the symbolic
significance of the CRC, this instrument will be pointless if there is no proper consideration of
the historical context in which it operates, which has inhibited its objects of promoting and
realizing the rights of the child. 10 To achieve the full realization of the CRC, it is important that
the CRC is granted more supervisory powers. The mere submission of reports by the Party States
is not a full guarantee for securing the implementation of the Convention. Consequently, it is
imperative to consider stricter regulatory measures and control.
Bibliography
Freeman, M. (2000). “The future of children’s rights’, Children and Society, 14(4), 77-293.
9 Treaty Series No.58 (1980), in force 27 January 1980.
10 Freeman, M. (2000). “The future of children’s rights’, Children and Society, 14(4), 77-293.
9
Gareth, A. (2005) “Children and development: rights, globalization and poverty”. Progress in
Development Studies 5(4), 336-342.
Hammarberg, T. (1999). “Criancas e Influencias Novicas da Midia. O significado da Convencao
da ONU”. In U. Carlsson and C.von Feilitzen….
Ramesh, A. (2001). UN Convention on Rights of the Child: Inherent Weaknesses. Economic and
Political Weekly, 36(22)
