Child Rights and the Movement from Status to Agency : Human Rights and the Removal of the Legal Disabilities of Vulnerability

Journal article

Clark, Sevda. (2015). Child Rights and the Movement from Status to Agency : Human Rights and the Removal of the Legal Disabilities of Vulnerability. Nordic Journal of International Law. 84(2), pp. 183-220. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-08402003
AuthorsClark, Sevda
Abstract

Using ideology as heuristic, a legal sociological approach is employed to critically evaluate a child’s legal status and its evolution since the eighteenth century. Four principal phases are identified: (1) legal ideology of individualism in the common law tradition; (2) movement from status to contract; (3) movement from status to rights; and (4) movement from status to agency. To strengthen legal agency both status and capacity are addressed. In the fourth phase, legal status has evolved in ways capable of facilitating children’s legal agency; it has evolved from being static to being dynamic, and is now determined by reference to public international law, rather than territorially. This article advances a universal norm of legal capacity to sue for violations of human rights, which is derived from the recent developments in human rights law. In the evolution of children’s rights we are presently witnessing the movement from status to agency.

Keywordslegal agency; child rights; international human rights; individual complaints; liberal legal ideology; legal sociology; Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure; Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Year01 Jan 2015
JournalNordic Journal of International Law
Journal citation84 (2), pp. 183-220
PublisherBrill Nijoff
ISSN0902-7351
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-08402003
Web address (URL)https://brill.com/view/journals/nord/84/2/article-p183_3.xml
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range183-220
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online01 Jun 2015
Publication process dates
Deposited21 May 2024
Additional information

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2015

Place of publicationNorway
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