ABSTRACT
Rights are indivisible and interdependent. Human rights — for that is what children's rights are — include the whole range of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Rights are an important advocacy tool, a weapon to use in the battle to secure recognition. Giving people rights without access to those who can present those rights, without the right of representation, is thus of little value. Rights offer legitimacy to campaigns, to pressure groups, to lobbies, to direct and indirect action, in particular to those who are disadvantaged or excluded. Rights are also a resource: they offer a reasoned argument. One of Guggenheim's principal concerns is that an emphasis on children's rights relegates the interests of others. There are good reasons why the interests of the child should rule. And this is so even if this lead to an order which only marginally improve the child's welfare at the expense of parents, other family members or, indeed, the wider community.
