ABSTRACT
Although it is still accepted by some that national laws may be neutral instruments of policy, international human rights law has never made claim to such a fallacy. Instead of impartiality, international human rights law is goal-oriented. The principle expressed in Tyrer v. United Kingdom makes it clear that the raison d ’etre of international human rights law is to raise the value of the individual in the state’s eyes and to improve the quality of individual daily life by the progressive implementation of human rights standards.1 However, although human rights law has never sought to be perceived as impartial in its goals, its claim to a pedigree derived from universal sources is contentious.2 Specific instruments and approaches have been justifiably criticised as being under the influence of the industrialised west but this criticism is inappropriate when applied to many of the international children’s rights standards.3 This is also evidenced by the almost universal ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 even by states who are not party to other human rights treaties.4 This is because there is no longer any significant disagreement at governmental levels over the existence of such legal rights; it is the content and extent of these rights which is the subject of disagreement.5
