ABSTRACT
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (Convention)1 is in many ways distinctive amongst international treaties and unique in terms of international law generally. It was produced after a lengthy drafting process that started in 1978. The participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in both the drafting process and the reporting mechanism set up under the Convention is also significant. Another remarkable feature has been the way in which states have been eager to sign and ratify the Convention. On the first day the Convention was opened for signature (26 January 1990), no less than 61 states parties signed, something of a record for an international treaty: see Figure 3.1 below. The Convention entered into force in international law on 2 September 1990. A remarkable feature of the Convention is quite simply the near-global ratification it has received. There are currently 193 parties to the Convention; only Somalia and the United States remain to ratify it (see section 3.3). Detrick (1999: 721), who has provided a detailed and authoritative annotation of each of the substantive articles of the Convention, concluded:
While the Convention on the Rights of the Child may not be the last – or complete – word on children’s rights, it is the first universal instrument of a legally binding nature to comprehensively address those rights. As such, it forms a universal benchmark on the rights of the child – a benchmark against which all future claims for evolution will and must be answered.
