Origins of the Drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Abstract

The twentieth century can arguably be viewed as the Century of the Child. The 1960s and 1970s in particular were periods of vigorous public debate concerning the triangular relationship between children, parents and the State and marked the advent of an emerging libertarian movement for children. Retrospectively, the Convention on the Rights of the Child might appear to be a culmination of a century-long concern with children, their protection and their rights. And yet, many political stakeholders reacted slowly and reluctantly to the idea of formulating a human rights document exclusively for children. This makes the document that the UN General Assembly (GA) finally adopted on 20 November 1989 all the more remarkable. Not only was it the most comprehensive human rights document so far but it was also ratified by 107 States within less than two years.¹ Today, its near-universal ratification supports the argument that ‘at least at the level of norm-creation there […] appears to exist a strong consensus among states as to the substance and universal applicability of the rights of the child’ (Harris-Short, 2003: 135). This also seems to be confirmed by the fact that the draft was entirely prepared by a Working Group of the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR),² and that it was adopted by the GA without a single modification, neither by the CHR nor by the Third Committee³ of the GA.⁴