Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Attributes (Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research)

This open access book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State’s progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children. This approach transforms the narrative of legal international standards concerning a given right into a set of characteristics that ensure no aspect of said right is overlooked. The book develops a clear and comprehensive understanding of the UNCRC that can be used as an introduction to the rights and principles it contains, and to identify directions for future policy and strategy development in compliance with the UNCRC. As such, it offers an invaluable reference guide for researchers and students in the field of childhood and children’s rights studies, as well as a wide range of professionals and organisations concerned with the subject.

Ziba Vaghri is an Associate Professor and the director of the GlobalChild program of research within the Integrated Health Initiative (IHI) at the University of New Brunswick-Saint John. She is a distinguished researcher in Global Health and among the leading scholars creating links between child rights and child development. She has received several awards and recognitions. The most recent is a 5-year Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (2015-2020).

She was trained and mentored by one of the pioneers of early child development, the late Dr. Clyde Hertzman (OC). She has led several multinational research projects, including those that resulted in the GlobalChild platform, a comprehensive child rights monitoring platform for all children, and the Early Childhood Rights Indicators, a child rights monitoring tool for children under age eight. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child supported both projects.

This book is a product of substantial research, over five years, that created indicator sets for each one of the substantive rights of children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These sets, and thus this book, are an integral aspect of the Global Child platform. Dr. Vaghri is leading GlobalChild through its next stage and spearheading its first pilot in Canada, followed by a series of international pilots.

Dr. Vaghri believes that when the science of child development is combined with the accountability of states under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the cumulative power is much greater and more beneficial for children than either approach can achieve on its own.

Jean Zermatten, former Chair of the United Nations CRC, was also the only Swiss member of the Committee. He is the former President and Dean of the juvenile court of the Canton of Valais, Switzerland (1980 – 2005), has also served an active Chairman of the International Association of Magistrates for Youth and Family (IAYFJM) from (1994 – 1998). In 1995 he founded the International Institute of Rights of the Child (IDE) in Sion/Switzerland, and served as its Director until 2015. Mr. Zermatten has also taught Juvenile Criminal Law at the University of Freiburg for ten years. He has contributed to numerous draft law projects, including: Project for the 1st unified Law for the criminal Procedure for Minors (Swiss Confederation); inter-cantonal concordat on the implementation of measures for young offenders (accepted in 2003); and collaborated on the creation of the first Swiss children’s rights network, gathering more than 50 Swiss NGOs. He has used his expertise in many continents, including in Africa and is Member of the West Africa Network for Children on the Move. He has been bestowed a Doctor honoris causa (Dr h.c) from both the University of Fribourg (2007) and the University of Geneva (2014).

Gerison Lansdown was the founder director (1992-2000), of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, and, over the past 20 years, has worked as an international children’s rights consultant and advocate, publishing and lecturing widely on the subject of children’s rights, including on children’s participation and evolving capacities. She has worked with the Committee on the Rights of the Child in the development of several General Comments, including on Articles 12 and 31, the rights of children during adolescence and currently on the rights of children in the digital environment. She was actively involved in the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in the drafting of the General Comment on inclusive education. She has Honorary Doctorates from the Open University UK; Carleton University, Canada; and the University of East London, and an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Central Lancashire. She was Vice Chair of UNICEF-UK for nine years, and is currently on the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights, Chair of the ODI GAGE programme, Chair of Child to Child and on the OSF Early Years Advisory Board.

Roberta Ruggiero is a senior research and teaching associate at the University of Geneva’s Centre for Children’s Rights Studies (CCRS). She is also the Academic Coordinator of the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN). She holds a MA in law, an MA in human rights and democratization from the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization (EIUC), and a PhD in children’s rights promotion and protection awarded by the University of Molise. Formerly, she was the scientific coordinator of the European Network of National Observatories on Childhood (ChildONEurope) based at the Instituto degli Innocenti (2008-2013). She was also a senior lecturer at the University of Padua, and an external professor of children’s rights at the University of Molise, as well as a researcher at the International Organization on Migration (Europe Office) and at the UNICEF-Innocenti Research Office. Her publications and research interests include: independent human rights institutions for children, children’s rights implementation, comparative childhood governmental policies, the status of parenthood in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and children’s rights approaches to evidence based policy. She is a member of the Committee of Experts and a scientific advisor to the Cantonal Observatory of Youth of Canton Valais, Switzerland and to the Working Group on National Child Maltreatment Data Collection at the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN).