20 November 2024 marks the 35^th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This human rights treaty for children, which contains legally binding provisions for 196 countries across the world, has had a huge impact over the past three decades on how we treat children and protect their human rights, freedoms and interests. We have seen progress through legislative reform, case law and an enhanced focus on domestic and international policies acknowledging children’s rights. Those rights include protection from violence, access to basic rights such as health, education and an adequate standard of living and the right to participate in decision-making that affects them.

In fact, children's rights date back much further. This year marks exactly one hundred years since the League of Nations accepted the Declaration on the Rights of the Child in Geneva at the initiative of Eglantyne Jebb, visionary founder of children's rights organisation Save the Children. This declaration focuses on what children deserves and forms the basis of the children's rights narrative we know today.

‘Polycrisis’

Unfortunately, today's world paints a troubling picture. The many ongoing global crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and many other countries are causing children to suffer. Millions of children and their families are confronted with extreme forms of poverty and inequality. In addition, there many other crises, including planetary crises, that impact children’s lives and opportunities to develop in a full and harmonious way, as the preamble of the CRC provides. In 2023, UNICEF spoke of a ‘polycrisis’, as multiple crises are simultaneously impacting children's rights while the world is still recovering from a pandemic. In many places, authoritarian regimes are setting the political agenda by suppressing dissent from civil society organisations, critical judges and human rights activists.

On top of this, we see that the importance of human rights and the protection of the rights of specific groups – including women, minorities, the LGBTIQ+ community and children – is being questioned on a United Nations level, in multilateral conversations. As Professor Ann Skelton pointed out in her inaugural lecture as Chair of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World at Leiden University earlier this year, new and somewhat surprising coalitions of countries are finding each other in conservative, sometimes roundly inhumane political agendas. For example, the US aligns with Russia when it comes to protecting family values at the expense of the rights of women and children. Finally, both governments and non-state actors such as businesses seem to show decreasing concern for criticism from other governments and agencies affiliated with the United Nations. Meanwhile, we seem to be further away from international solidarity than ever.

Renewed commitment to children’s basic human rights

While this global, multifaceted crisis has caused many to question whether international law has lost its credibility, a number of positive trends can still be observed. Two recent developments, in particular, offer glimmers of hope: South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the recent announcement that Netherlands, Germany, Australia and Canada plan to file a case at the ICJ regarding discrimination against women and girls. These developments show how States are using international fora that extend beyond their own States to address human rights violations from which they are far removed and that do not affect them directly.

The Optional Protocol to the CRC on a Communications Procedure (OPIC) also serves as an international forum where children and their representatives can access individual remedies against rights violations. During OPIC’s first decade, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has delivered various procedural and substantive decisions that have resulted in both individual and systemic remedies, in cases ranging from migration and violence to the protection of children from foreign fighters and climate change.

Another positive trend is that the work of the ICJ, the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor and the work of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Children in Armed Conflict are all cited in the 2024 concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, referring to Russia and Israel respectively. This shows a growing solidarity of ideas – a strengthening of ranks around children in armed conflict, with many voices repeating the call for an end to the devastating harm that war inflicts on children.

Worrying about other people’s children, including those of our enemies, is the spirit that gave rise to children’s rights one hundred years ago. We want to reach out in solidarity to all those who believe in human rights. We call for a renewed commitment to the human rights of children everywhere, now and in the future.

This blog is written on behalf of the Department of Child Law and Health Law.