The State of the World's Children 1997

The Convention on the Rights of the Child became "international law on 2 September 1990, nine months after the Convention’s adoption by the United Nations General Assembly." According to the UNICEF report, The State of the World's Children 1997, governments are to put a high priority on the welfare of children. Let's take a close look at what the UN is saying (color is added for emphasis).

At the end of the postwar reconstruction period, developing countries emerging from the colonial era invoked the same principle to demand that children be given specific attention in international cooperation. UNICEF’s initial relief mandate was enlarged to include the survival and development of children. Now, the international approach to children has changed dramatically once again. The idea that children have special needs has given way to the conviction that children have rights, the same full spectrum of rights as adults: civil and political, social, cultural and economic.

This a dramatic change, because if children have the same rights as adults, there is no basis for parental discipline of children. In fact, the only entity that will have discipline over children is the state! Further evidence that families are to be subject to the UN is the following statement about families being obligated to insure that children receive their rights.

The Convention requires families, societies, governments and the inter-national community to take action designed to fulfil the rights of all children in a sustainable, participatory and non-discriminatory manner.

The information in the The State of the World's Children 1997 report indicates that at the present time, governmental compliance with the Convention is mostly voluntary. However, ratification of the Convention by nations has given the Convention legal standing, and the risk exists that in the future the UN might change compliance from being voluntary to being required.