Geraldine Van Bueren, The International Law on the Rights of the Child

Simply stated, the international children\u27s rights movement asks individual governments to take children\u27s interests seriously when enacting laws for them. In order to enact policies that take children\u27s interests seriously, all laws must be evaluated and examined from the child\u27s point of view. An examination of the current international children\u27s rights movement from the child\u27s point of view, however, reveals considerable schisms between international principles and the state of the world\u27s children. Professor Van Bueren directly examines the complex issues involved in defining and understanding children\u27s rights. Her analysis of formal international law relating to the rights of the child is invaluable and would stand on its own. The text, however, does more than meticulously detail the rights of children in international law as enshrined in U.N. documents. Van Bueren also explores how other international fora and different countries are struggling with children\u27s rights, both in theory and in practice. The International Law on the Rights of the Child is a text of mammoth proportions, containing fourteen well researched chapters. The first three chapters are devoted to examining the international children\u27s movement 1\u27 and defining the place of children in international law, both in terms of legal definitions of children 2 and in terms of children\u27s rights and their relation to the rights of other family members. i The middle chapters explore children\u27s substantive rights. 4 The last chapter documents organizations and treaty implementing bodies that have taken it upon themselves to ensure children\u27s rights