The contributors to this edited collection provide first-hand experiences in directing, working for, and studying ICRIs and detail their unique, in-depth accounts of factors shaping ICRIs’ efforts to monitor and advance children’s rights.

Children’s rights appear universal, inalienable, and indivisible, intended to advance young people’s interests. Yet, in practice, evidence suggests the contrary: the international framework of treaties, procedures, and national policies contains fundamental contradictions that weaken commitments to children’s real-world protections. Brian Gran helps us understand what is at stake when children’s rights are compromised. This insightful text grounds readers in core theories and key data about children’s legal entitlements. The chapters tackle central questions about what rights accrue to young people, whether they advance equality, and how they influence children’s identities, freedoms, and societal participation. Ultimately, this book shows how current frameworks hinder young people from possessing and benefiting from human rights, arguing that they function as cynical invitations to question whether we truly believe children are endowed with human rights. The Sociology of Children’s Rights offers a critical and accessible introduction to understanding a complex issue in the contemporary world, and is a compelling read for students and researchers concerned with human rights in sociology, political science, law, social work, and childhood studies.

This is the first Commonwealth-wide comparative study of national human rights institutions (NHRIs), and is designed to help everyone interested in establishing and developing NHRIs to improve their effectiveness. The study looks at the international framework for the protection of human rights, and the historical and political background to the establishment of NHRIs and ombudsman offices. The individual mandates of various institutions are considered, looking at them region by region. Finally, the study compares the normative framework and mandates of the NHRIs are analysed, comparing what NHRIs are empowered to do and what they are doing in practice, though value judgements as to the merits and demerits of individual named institutions are avoided. Rather than provide a detailed theoretical analysis, the study concentrates on helping practitioners and policy-makers improve the working of NHRIs in practice, and will be a useful tool both to the institutions themselves and to all those who wish to support them.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 is one of the most highly ratified human rights treaties in the world, with 192 states currently signed up to it. Article Twelve is fundamental to the Convention and states that all children capable of forming views have the right to express those views, and recognises that all children have the right to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting them. This book explores the historical and theoretical background to Article Twelve, and examines the various models of participation which have been created to facilitate a better understanding of this provision. Aisling Parkes analyzes the extent to which Article Twelve has been implemented under international law, and in domestic law, as well as setting-out recommendations for the most effective ways of implementing Article Twelve in all areas of children’s lives.

This exciting Research Handbook combines practitioner and academic perspectives to provide a comprehensive, cutting edge analysis of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), as well as the connection between ESCR and other rights. Offering an authoritative analysis of standards and jurisprudence, it argues for an expansive and inclusive approach to ESCR as human rights.

This open access book critically explores what child protection policy and professional practice would mean if practice was grounded in human rights standards. This book inspires a new direction in child protection research – one that critically assesses child protection policy and professional practice with regard to human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular. Each chapter author seeks to approach the rights of the child from their own academic field of interest and through a comparative lens, making the research relevant across nation-state practices. The book is split into five parts to focus on the most important aspects of child protection. The first part explains the origins, aim, and scope of the book; the second part explores aspects of professionalism and organization through law and policy; and the third part discusses several key issues in child protection and professional practice in depth. The fourth part discusses selected areas of importance to child protection practices (low-impact in-house measures, public care in residential care and foster care respectively) and the fifth part provides an analytical summary of the book. Overall, it contributes to the present need for a more comprehensive academic debate regarding the rights of the child, and the supranational perspective this brings to child protection policy and practice across and within nation-states. .

"The Handbook aims to be a practical tool for implementation, explaining and illustrating the implications of each article of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the two Optional Protocols adopted in 2000 as well as their interconnections."--P. xvii.