Incorporating children's rights: the divergence in law and policy

The paper examines conceptual barriers to incorporation of chidlren's rights - understood in the context of the ECHR, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the UNCRC - in the law of England and Wales. It identifies traditions in law and policy and competing political imperatives that pull against effective implementation of children's rights to protection and provision, but argues that children's participative rights, surprisingly, pose fewer problems.It argues that thescope for further jdicial development is limited. It examines administrative practice and emergent differences between England and Wales post-devolution and the potential for divergent child law and practice within the fused jurisdiction of England and Wales. It argues for attention to executive as well as legislative and judicial functions as mechansims to promote rights-based decision making