Publications

This Innocenti Study focuses on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as it relates to children’s basic economic and social rights in developing countries in terms of the obligations placed by the Convention on both States and the international community. A key proposition is that working effectively for children’s rights involves many of the same strategies and implementation methods that have proved successful in numerous development efforts worldwide. The rights approach is inherently more concerned with issues of equity, non-discrimination and social justice, but it cannot afford to neglect the challenge of resource mobilization. And in this regard our conception of societal ‘resources’ must be extended beyond the limited finances of governments to encompass human, technological, cultural and organizational capabilities.

From 1992 to 1995, the Children’s Rights Development Unit worked to promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the UK. It chose five broad strategies: promoting awareness of the Convention and its practical application to children’s lives; monitoring the extent to which legislation, policy and practice in the UK comply with the Convention; developing practical strategies for implementation; promoting children’s participation; and identifying mechanisms for compliance. The process, which involved many individuals (children included) and hundreds of organizations, is documented here to be shared with kindred organizations in other countries.

This title focuses on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as it relates to children’s basic economic and social rights in developing countries in terms of the obligations placed by the Convention on both States and the international community. A key proposition is that working effectively for children’s rights involves many of the same strategies and implementation methods that have proved successful in numerous development efforts worldwide. The rights approach is inherently more concerned with issues of equity, non-discrimination and social justice, but it cannot afford to neglect the challenge of resource mobilization. And in this regard our conception of societal ‘resources’ must be extended beyond the limited finances of governments to encompass human, technological, cultural and organizational capabilities. (A summary of this book is also available as an Innocenti Study.)

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been variously hailed as ‘the cornerstone of a new moral ethos’ and a ‘milestone in the history of mankind’. But laws and treaties are as nothing without adequate practical follow-up. The real results will depend not upon the high-mindedness of the ideals themselves, but upon the action taken to achieve them. The ‘challenge of implementation’, is the subject of the three papers collected here. The CRC must not be dismissed as ‘another Utopia’ and it is argued that, with the right policy decisions, the convention’s initial momentum can be sustained.