ABSTRACT
In 1989, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Within one year, the Convention was ratified by the necessary minimum of 20 countries and entered into force in 1990. By 1999, the remarkable speed with which the Convention entered into force, together with its near universal acceptance,2 established the Convention as something of an international human rights success story. Unlike other more controversial human rights agreements, such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is generally accepted as a positive and important development.
