ABSTRACT

Javier Perez de Cuellar (Secretary-general of the UN) made this statement in 1987 during the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In 1989, after adoption of the Convention, he said: 'the UN has given the global community an international instrument of high quality protecting the dignity, equality and basic human rights of the world's children' (quoted in UNICEF, 1995). In 1990 the World Summit on Children was attended by 71 heads of state and government (including the UK) who pledged: 'The wellbeing of children requires political action at the highest level. We are determined to take that action. We ourselves make a solemn commitment to give high priority to the rights of children' (quoted in CRDU, 1994, p.xi). However, seven years later, Caroline Hamilton (Director of the Children's Legal Centre) found that 'Much of the rhetoric on children's rights is just that, rhetoric' (Hamilton 1996, p.1).