2. Children’s rights – part of the human rights process

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is his­torically the instrument of human rights which has found the greatest acceptance worldwide. It has been ratified by all countries (apart from two), thereby bringing children and their rights closer to the centre of the endeavour to establish a univer­sal implementation of human rights. With the ratifi­cation of this instrument, national governments have committed themselves to protecting and en­suring children’s rights. At the same time, they have declared themselves willing to hold them­selves accountable for this responsibility vis-à-vis the international community.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is based on various different cultural traditions and legal systems. It is a universally recognised collection of non-negotiable obligations and standards. It de­termines – without any form of discrimination – the fundamental human rights for all children the world over.

• the right to survival
• the right to the development of one’s full poten­tial
• the right to protection from abuse, exploitation and harmful substances
• the right to participate fully in family, cultural or social life

Every right spelled out in the Convention is inher­ent to the human dignity and harmonious devel­opment of every child. The Convention protects children’s rights by setting standards in health care, education and legal, civil and social services. These standards are benchmarks against which progress can be assessed. States that are party to the Convention are obliged to develop and under-take all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to in­corporate the full range of human rights – civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Two optional protocols (on the in­volvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornog­raphy) were adopted to strengthen the provisions of the Convention in these areas. They entered into force on 12 February and 18 January 2002 respectively.

The development of modern societies points to another question: The right to liberty supports a development of pluralist societies encouraging a high degree of secularisation and individualised lifestyles. How can these societies maintain a minimum consensus of basic values that are bind­ing for all citizens?

Human rights and children’s rights have contrib­uted immensely to making the world a safer and more humane place to live in, and also to modern­ising the political, economic and cultural systems around the world. However, they must never be taken for granted, and each generation must con­tribute to their development, negotiate them anew and also fight for them to fulfil the pledge of human rights and children’s rights in future.

Human rights, on which children’s rights are based, have a long tradition. Forerunners and par­allels can be found in great world religions and schools of philosophical thought. Modern human rights were first declared in the Age of Enlighten­ment, and were a source of inspiration for the American and French revolutions. Today, they form the basic constitutional principles in written and unwritten constitutions of modern democ­racies. Throughout their history, human rights have been of particular importance to protect the weak against the strong. This is why children’s rights are so crucial: minors are among the groups whose legal status vis-à-vis the executive powers is weakest.

The human rights process, both revolutionary and evolutionary, has produced successive genera­tions of human rights: the classic rights of liberty, social rights focusing on the value of equality, and – still under discussion – ecological and societal rights addressing issues of development and mu­tual dependence in an increasingly globalised world, and, as a further implementation – children’s rights.

The process of developing and expanding human rights and children’s rights is still – and perhaps always will be – under way: the universal claim of human rights and children’s rights have been questioned on numerous occasions, human rights and children’s rights are withheld by dictatorships and autocratic regimes around the world, and the dynamic development of modern society and technology poses new questions and challenges. For example, how can the privacy of communica­tion be protected in the era of the Internet?

Human rights have acquired increasing im­portance as a framework for secular ethics, as codified by the UN Charter and the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights. They rep­resent the only set of values that stand a chance of being universally accepted by the world com­munity.

Time and again, there are states that misuse their rights of sovereignty under the pretext of protec­tion while violating basic human rights and chil­dren’s rights of its citizens. It is an open question how human rights and children’s rights are to be enforced and protected in a world of sovereign states including democracies and dictatorships. In order to protect peace not only between – but also within – states, it would seem that further adapta­tion and development of the UN Charter is indis­pensable.