HISTORY
leaders made a commitment to fulfil child rights at the 2002 UN Special Session on Children, encapsulating their determination in a compact entitled ‘A World Fit for Children’. These statements urged governments to complete the agenda of the 1990 World Summit, adhere to the standards of the Convention and achieve internationally agreed development objectives and goals – including those incorporated in the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration.
© UNICEF/NYHQ2005-2251/Giacomo Pirozzi
A similar call to action was made at the close of the World Fit for Children +5 special session in December 2007, when a new ‘declaration on children’ was adopted by more than 140 governments. This latest declaration acknowledges the progress achieved towards meeting child rights and the challenges that persist. It reaffirms commitment to the World Fit for Children compact as well as to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols.
The core principles of the Convention The four core principles of the Convention – non-discrimination, best interests of the child, right to life, survival and development, and respect for the views of the child – should guide actions in all matters concerning children. Children play with colourful blocks at an early childhood development centre in the rural village of Ajmou in Meknes-Tafilalet Region, Morocco.
had been accepted. Its landmark status was confirmed almost immediately; on the day it was opened for signature in January 1990, 61 countries signed. Furthermore, the Convention was ratified in record time by the required minimum number of States parties (20) and entered into force in September 1990; it was celebrated later that month during another unique event: the World Summit for Children, held at UN Headquarters in New York. The Summit added political weight to the Convention, and in the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s the 71 heads of state and government in attendance called on all governments to promote the “earliest possible” ratification and implementation of the Convention. Since the early 1990s, the lexicon and provisions of the Convention have been incorporated into national and regional legislation, declarations, charters and manifestos across the world. In 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted two Optional Protocols to the Convention, on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. In 2002, world
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Whereas the 1924 Geneva Declaration and 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child expressed the aspirations of the international community concerning child rights, the Convention and its Optional Protocols are legal instruments, and ratifying nations are committed to realizing their provisions. States parties are required to report regularly to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body entrusted with monitoring the implementation of the Convention and its Optional Protocols by States parties. The Committee’s 18 members also provide States parties with guidance on how to interpret and apply the treaty. But the Convention is more than a treaty with a monitoring arm; it is a far-reaching opus on the care and protection of children in practical and moral terms. The Convention sets out common standards, yet recognizes that to ensure ownership and relevance, each State party must seek its own way of implementing the treaty. Guidance for national implementation rests on General Comments and the general measures of implementation established by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (see panel, page 8) as well as on the foundation of the four core principles: • Non-discrimination, or universality (article 2) • Best interests of the child (article 3) • Right to life, survival and development (article 6) • Respect for the views of the child (article 12). Non-discrimination: The rights guaranteed by the Convention are afforded to all children without exception. Article 2
THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN | SPECIAL EDITION