Publications

Ensuring the proper functioning of public institutions is integral to good governance, yet ensuring and monitoring the requirements of human rights instruments is difficult and measurement of children’s rights even more so. This paper explores some of the factors which impede and promote public sector responsibilities towards children. The purpose of this analysis is to seek methods of assessing the performance of governments in their roles as protectors of the rights of children according to their international commitments. The multiplicity of actors involved in the process is described and the related problems for cooperation and effective implementation considered.

This publication documents a rare attempt to assess all the steps involved in legal reform for the realization of child rights and makes a detailed estimate of the costs at each step. The case study addresses two costing projects in connection with these reforms: one for development of a child justice system, another for a comprehensive children’s act. Both of these were extensive pieces of legislation requiring substantial systemic adjustment.