Book Review: The Convention on the Rights of the Child
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/092405199601400112 |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Part D: Documentation
BOOK REVIEWS
Lawrence LeBlanc, The Convention on the Rights of the Child. United Nations
Lawmaking on Human Rights, University
of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London,
1995,337
pp:
The Convention on the Rights
of
the Child is unique because of its likelihood
of
becoming
the first international human rights treaty to be ratified by all members
of
the United
Nations. Interest for it is based in its apparent success, evidenced by the rapid and global
ratification process, but goes much beyond that: when the drafting process had started, no
one could have expected the future convention to become such a success. Many authors
have addressed that paradox and found different answers to the puzzle. LeBlanc's book
discusses the origin
of
the Convention, the establishment and the beginning
of
the work
of
the Committee on the Rights
of
the Child (CRC), and notes the Convention's fast and
wide acceptance by States. LeBlanc attributes the Convention's attractiveness to States to
the fact that 'virtually everywhere in the world, children are perceived to be vulnerable
to the most serious forms
of
human rights abuse' (p. xii). Additional factors, such as a
possibility that children's inability to claim and enforce their proclaimed rights may have
facilitated its acceptance, or the eternal misconception
of
children's needs equalling
children's rights and thus avoiding conflict-prone human rights dilemmas, are not
explored. Indeed, distinctions between children's rights and children's needs are blurred
in LeBlanc's book, thus undermining the core features
of
human rights. The final
paragraph
of
his book says: 'To effectively address the basic needs
of
children will require
more than a legal commitment; it will require a political commitment on the part
of
governments to provide the resources necessary to deal effectively with those needs.' (p.
287). The repeated mention
of
needs rather than rights
of
the child is indicative
of
his
conceptual approach. LeBlanc starts his book by emphasizing the political significance of
the Convention in terms of a commitment of governments - collectively and individually
- to accord children priority in the allocation of resources. The significance
of
the
Convention for the conceptual development
of
human rights -alluded to by the subtitle
of
his book - takes second place in his analysis.
Leblanc's critical review of the proliferation
of
human rights instruments serves as
introduction to his description of the evolution
of
the Convention, from the initial proposal
of Poland in 1978 to its adoption in 1989. Paradoxically, the Convention has already
triggered
of
the drafting
of
two additional protocols, as if to highlight what the answer to
his question, 'to what extent are the criticisms
of
the human rights treaty-making process
applicable to the Convention on the Rights
of
the Child?' (p. 16) is.
The drafting process is described by discussing the respective roles
of
the relevant
actors. They were not confined to governmental delegations, which was made possible by
the fact that the working group that negotiated the text
of
the future convention was open
ended. Moreover, the drafting process had started, as LeBlanc points out, without either
broad-bases support or strong and sustained opposition (p. 24); the paucity
of
ready-made
models to follow and
of
novel ways to adjust human rights norms, patterned on adults, to
Katarina Tomasevski, Visiting Professor, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian
Law, University of Lund, Sweden.
III
Netherlands Quarterly
of
Human Rights, Vol. 14/1, 111·\20, 1996.
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