Social Rights are also Children’s Rights!? An Analysis of the ECSR’s Case Law on Children

Author(s):  
Katharina Häusler
Author(s):  
Wouter Vandenhole ◽  
Gamze Erdem Türkelli

The best interests of the child principle is considered a pillar of children’s rights law and, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), is to be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children. Yet best interests is an elusive concept and principle that has no single authoritative definition or description. Internationally and domestically relevant in such diverse areas as family law, adoption, migration, and socioeconomic policymaking, the best interests principle requires flexibility and is best served by a case-by-case approach, as has been recognized by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the European Court of Human Rights. This chapter analyzes relevant international case law and suggests the use of a number of safeguards to prevent such requisite flexibility from presenting a danger of paternalism, bias, or misuse.


Author(s):  
Pavlo Parkhomenko

The entry of a child into the sphere of justice, regardless of its status, requires the creation of such conditions that would minimize the possibility of the impact of negative factors in the process of administering justice on the child himself. In this regard, one of the effective and important elements in the child-friendly justice system may be the organization of a special courtroom, which would be adapted to hear cases involving a child, which is not widely used in national practice and does not have the appropriate legal regulation in general. In addition, to date, there are no studies that would reflect the problems of organizing a courtroom, in which it is possible to try different categories of cases with the participation of the child. The article attempts to conduct a theoretical and legal study of existing international standards and national legal regulation of the organization of child-friendly courtrooms, identifying the basic elements for its creation, through which it is possible to formulate basic approaches to the administration of child-friendly justice. The author stressed that international standards refer to the components of child-friendly justice, including the issue of creating the most comfortable conditions for the child in the courtroom and directly during the hearing. To substantiate the conclusions, we analyzed the national case law and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which demonstrates cases of violation of children's rights by not creating appropriate conditions for the trial of children, and emphasizes the importance of the situation in which the trial took place. from litigation involving adults. Positive practices of organization of special courtrooms in some courts of Ukraine are given. Based on the analysis, it was found that the issue of arranging a courtroom friendly to children has no legislative and departmental regulations, in connection with which proposed ways to address the legislative gap in this direction and guidelines for organizing a special courtroom, which is positively assessed. Рrovided children who were invited to court and who had the opportunity to compare the general courtroom and the special. Keywords: international standards, children's rights, child-friendly justice, child interview, courtroom.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Gran

AbstractChildren's rights continue to be subject of international debates. Moving past these debates can be facilitated with an international measure of children's rights. This article introduces the Children's Rights Index, an international measure of children's rights for over 190 countries. The Children's Rights Index consists of two civil rights, two political rights, two social rights, and two economic rights. This article presents country scores on the Children's Rights Index, then examines whether children's rights vary by region and other differences, such as country wealth. It is hoped that the Children's Rights Index will provide evidence on children's rights important to the work of governments and nongovernmental organizations, as well as scholars and others concerned about children's welfare.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Quennerstedt

AbstractIn this paper, the widespread use of the "3 p's", provision, protection and participation, to categorise children's rights is critically examined. This conceptualisation is argued to have hampering effects on research in children's rights, in that it frames the research in a problematic way and hinders the possibilities of attaining theoretically driven analyses. In the paper, the emergence and use of the 3 p's is first traced and discussed. Thereafter, an alternative language for constructing and analysing children's rights is proposed, namely the vocabulary used for general human rights: civil, political and social rights. When children's rights are placed within the development of human rights and conceptualised accordingly, a different understanding of the content of children's rights surfaces. The theoretical contextualisation that is then added is suggested as a way of approaching contradictions and conflicts surrounding children's rights issues with more theoretical depth and nuances.


2020 ◽  
pp. 469-506
Author(s):  
Stephen Gilmore ◽  
Lisa Glennon

This chapter introduces some theoretical discussions concerning children’s rights and examines some ‘core’ legal provisions. It also looks at the case law related to which the issue of the legal protection of children’s interests has been explored. The focus is on the child’s right to make his or her own decisions as a possible limitation on parental responsibility, explored principally in the context of children’s medical treatment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 548-574
Author(s):  
Anette Faye Jacobsen

Legal research has shown mixed results regarding the application of a child-centred approach in judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. With an interdisciplinary perspective, however, a number of remarkable features become visible.This article explores case law from the European system with a blended methodology. First, a quantitative assessment of the Court’s judgments over the last decade reveals, surprisingly, that the child’s best interests doctrine has become widely used only recently, despite the principle being invoked as early as 1988. Secondly, an in-depth discourse analysis of selected landmark cases shows how the child-centred approach, in certain types of case, has gained status as the paramount consideration to the extent that it may sideline competing principles in the balancing exercise of adjudication. In the conclusion, the two types of enquiries, the statistical and the qualitative scrutiny of judgments, are combined to offer an assessment of the power of children’s rights alongside other interests in the European human rights machinery.


Author(s):  
Stephen Gilmore ◽  
Lisa Glennon

This chapter introduces some theoretical discussions concerning children’s rights and examines some ‘core’ legal provisions. It also looks at the case law related to which the issue of the legal protection of children’s interests has been explored. The focus is on the child’s right to make his or her own decisions as a possible limitation on parental responsibility.


1997 ◽  
Vol 52 (12) ◽  
pp. 1385-1386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael G. Wessells

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