ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that corporal punishment violates children's rights. It first identifies the fundamental rights engaged by corporal punishment. The chapter deals with moral, not legal, rights, although, as shall soon become evident, the moral rights against corporal punishment that the author claims children possess have been incorporated into international law and many national jurisdictions as legal rights. It then argues that children possess these rights. The chapter enquires whether corporal punishment violates the first of the rights implicated by it that he claim children possess, the right to security of the person, which, the author submits, includes the right to be protected against violence. It also argues that all corporal punishment violates the right to security of the person as well as the right to be protected against violence that is subsumed under it. The rights to security of the person and to protection against degrading, cruel or torturous punishment are paradigmatic human rights.
