Childhood and children’s rights

The international law relating to children is best understood by considering at the outset what we mean when we talk about ‘childhood’ and ‘children’s rights’. At first sight, these two concepts seem straightforward, but on closer examination they turn out to be quite contestable notions. ‘Childhood’ assumes some kind of understanding of what it means to be a child, and, by implication, an adult. ‘Children’s rights’ assumes a background framework of knowledge about ‘human rights’ of which children’s rights can be considered an integral part. To an extent, the project of international law relating to children is one which is predicated on the existence of a universally held definition of ‘child’,1 and yet it is self-evident that ‘childhood’ is experienced very differently by groups of children even within the same nation state. Furthermore, the way in which we perceive childhood and children’s rights will have a highly significant bearing on how we view international child law and the international community’s approach to legal regulation and standard-setting in this area. This chapter seeks to introduce the reader to these two important concepts.