ABSTRACT

Twelve days into the new Bush administration, the leader of the American delegation to the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children launched a “blistering attack” on children’s economic, welfare and cultural rights. Ambassador Southwick suggested that “the human rights based approach, while laudable in its objectives, poses significant problems” (CRIN, 2 February 2001). Turning specifically to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Southwick stated that “The United States does not accept obligations based on it nor do we accept that it is the best or only framework for developing programmes and policies to benefit children” (ibid.). Given these sentiments, it is perhaps unsurprising that America together with Somalia remain the only two countries in the world which have failed to ratify the Convention. The Ambassador’s uncompromising rejection of the Convention highlights the fragility of any policy consensus to resolve the problems confronting children and young people in the emerging global economy and society. But these problems are considerable and growing. Children’s most basic rights to drinking water, food, shelter and even the right to life are being denied on a scale which is alarming.