ABSTRACT
This chapter is part of a larger project that explores, and begins to map, the complicated relationship between family obligations, which bind us all, and human rights; i.e., universal norms set out in multiple legal instruments, ratified by most of the world’s states, but familiar to relatively few of the world’s people. The thesis here is that these systems are interdependent; neither works without the other. As a corollary, we need both to thrive; at this point, many of us need both to survive.
This chapter focuses on children’s socio-economic rights to health, an adequate standard of living and education. It explains how these rights require states to support families and draws on the work of the CRC Committee and recent country reports to show how countries throughout the world support their children. It also shows what the lack of this support costs American children and their families.
