ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the present law concerning the right of parents to administer corporal punishment to their children and the movement toward abolition of that right in New Zealand. It then assesses the potential impact of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC) upon the parental right of corporal punishment. The area in which the CRC may have the most visible impact is in the abolition of corporal punishment debate. Conservative Christian (CCs) quite rightly perceives the CRC as a formidable weapon against them in their battle to retain parental physical discipline. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child—the body established under Article 43 of the CRC to monitor states' progress in implementing the Conventions obligations—has criticized the continued retention of the right of corporal punishment of children in New Zealand legislation. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently maintained that corporal punishment is in violation of the Convention.
