ABSTRACT
All the Articles in the UN 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child can apply to babies from birth, as shown in this chapter. It begins by examining legal and natural rights. Natural rights that are inalienable to all human beings especially apply to babies. Protection, provision and participation rights are reviewed in turn for their relevance to babies, as well as to every age group. Babies’ rights are better understood as human all-age rights than as separate junior versions of rights. Recent psychological research on preverbal babies’ moral and scientific understanding opens new insights into how ‘human’ young babies are. The authors draw on the research literature and also on their daily experiences of living with babies, Ren in Tokyo, Japan, and Kolbe in Dorset, England. The chapter aims to illustrate the practical meaning of the UNCRC’s ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’.
