Children’s Economic and Social Rights

Is there such a concept? Do they really exist? To speak of children’s economic and social rights implies an affirmative answer to these questions. But the drafting history of the Convention on the Rights of the Child reveals the fragile nature of the distinction between economic and social rights and civil and political rights for children. Indeed, if not for a late intervention from UNICEF, this distinction may well have been erased from the lexicon of children’s rights. It did however survive but only just. This chapter explores the vulnerable and often clouded relationship between children and economic and social rights. It labours to offer some doctrinal clarity with respect to the nature of this relationship which has been somewhat overlooked within the scholarship on economic and social rights - just what economic and social rights do children actually enjoy? - and what are the attendant obligations on States – are they any different to the obligations owed with respect to generic economic and social rights? But it does not shy away from the constructed and artificial nature of the distinction between the two sets of rights – an artificiality that has only become more acute as the meaning of all rights has expanded and muddied traditional points of distinction. Nor does it shy away from the serious challenges facing the effective implementation of all children’s rights – whether they are classified as economic and social rights or civil and political rights. Particular attention is also drawn to the need to bridge what is termed the disciplinary divide and shift the conception of children from a welfare based approach, which highlights their deficits and vulnerability to a rights-based approach, which recognises their strengths and evolving capacities