Chapter 1 begins with an overview of the historical argument for human rights, starting in the seventeenth century, that stresses human reason and autonomy as the foundation of rights for “abstract adults,” especially in the theories of Locke and Kant. These liberal approaches denied children rights on the grounds that they did not meet the criteria for rights. In contrast, this chapter presents a relational approach to rights based on shared human vulnerability and dependency. Those aspects stress the social, not individualist, nature of rights, as envisioned by Marx, feminists, and communitarian thinkers. The new approach makes inclusion of children’s human rights possible.
