To incorporate the CRC or not – is this really the question?

ABSTRACT

International human rights law maintains a patchy record of implementation in national systems. Tangible implementation is sporadic at best and ill-conceived at worst, with the middle ground affecting a demeanour of sustained non-commitment to human rights. International human rights treaties universally contain a call to States Parties to implement or give legal effect to the obligations found in the treaty text; the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is no different. Most states that made some effort to incorporate the Convention have been selective in implementing the obligations, opting for an á la carte selection of rights protection rather than the full menu of rights. This situation stems from a range of legal and political realities. The article examines the concept of incorporation by surveying examples of CRC implementation across a number of states. The aim is to contribute to current debates about the value of incorporation of the CRC.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• incorporation
• children’s rights
• UNCRC
• treaty law
• treaty bodies

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Rebecca Smyth for her invaluable research assistance. With thanks to James Harrison, Elisenda Casanas Adam, Juliet Harris and the anonymous peer reviewers for the helpful comments on a previous draft. All errors remain my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kasey McCall-Smith is a Lecturer in Public International Law and the Director of the LLM in Human Rights at the University of Edinburgh. She researches, speaks and publishes predominantly in the areas of treaty law, corporate social responsibility relating to modern slavery, treaty body jurisprudence and the domestic incorporation and implementation of human rights treaties. She is currently the Chair of the Association of Human Rights Institutes.

ORCID

Kasey McCall-Smith http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1646-3144

Notes

1 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3, entered into force 2 September 1990, art 4 (CRC).

2 ‘Ratification’ will be used to collectively refer to the act of ratification, or another form expressing a state’s consent to be bound to a treaty, in line with articles 2 and 11 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. These expressions of consent are what create an international legal obligation for the state, and states giving such consent are described as ‘States Parties’.

3 Alan Boyle and Christine Chinkin, The Making of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 159.

4 Philip Allott, ‘The Concept of International Law’, EJIL 10 (1999): 31, 43.

5 Joel E. Oestreich, Development and Human Rights: Rhetoric and Reality in India (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017), 86. See also Inger Eliasson, ‘The Gap Between Formalised Children’s Rights and Children’s Real Lives in Sport’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 52 (2017): 470, 473 et seq.

6 Tara Collins and Lisa Wolff, ‘Work in Progress: Twenty-five Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – The General Measures of Implementation across the Globe’, Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights 1 (2014): 85, 86.

7 William A. Schabas, ‘Reservations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child’, Human Rights Quarterly 18 (1996): 472.

8 Vassilis Pergantis, The Paradigm of State Consent in the Law of Treaties: Challenges and Perspectives (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017), 74.

9 The United States is the only UN Member State yet to ratify the CRC and, at the time of writing, there are no plans for it to do so.

10 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), General Comment No. 5 General measures of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (arts. 4, 42 and 44, para. 6), 27 November 2003, CRC/GC/2003/527, para. 1.

11 See, for example, Swedish Government. ‘English summary of SOU 2016:19’, 55, https://www.government.se/information-material/2016/06/english-summary-on-proposals-for-an-act-on-incorporation-the-un-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-crc-into-swedish-domestic-law-from-sou-201619.pdf/. John Tobin has examined the progressive nature of recognising ESC Rights in particular in John Tobin, The Right to Health in International Law (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), chapter 5. See also, John Tobin, ‘Justifying Children’s Rights’, International Journal of Children’s Rights 21 (2013): 395; Sean D. Murphy, ‘Does International Law Obligate States to Open Their National Courts to Persons for the Invocation of Treaty Norms that Protect or Benefit Persons?’, in The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement, ed. David Sloss (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), 105–6. Murphy goes as far to argue that the wording of the CRC ‘weighs against implying … access to national courts’ at 106.

12 John Tobin, ‘Understanding Children’s Rights: A Vision beyond Vulnerability’, Nordic Journal of International Law 84 (2015): 155, 162; Eliasson, ‘The Gap Between Formalised Children’s Rights’, 473.

13 UNCRC, General Comment No. 5.

14 See Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 85, 88; John Tobin, ‘Increasingly Seen and Heard: The Constitutional Recognition of Children’s Rights’, South Africa Journal of Human Rights 21 (2005): 86, 88.

15 Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 85, 92; Tobin, ‘Increasingly Seen and Heard’, 86.

16 UNCRC, General Comment No. 5; UNCRC, General comment No. 19 (2016) on Public Budgeting for the Realization of Children’s Rights (art. 4), 20 July 2016, CRC/C/GC/19. See Laura Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Implementation in 12 Countries (Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast and UNICEF UK, 2012), 4; UNICEF/Innocenti Research Centre, Law Reform and Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2007), 1.

17 Wouter Vandenhole, ‘Child Poverty and Children's Rights: An Uneasy Fit?’, Michiigan State International Law Review 22 (2013): 609, 629 et seq.

18 Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 4.

19 Government Offices of Sweden, ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child Will Become Swedish Law’, Press release, June 13, 2018, https://www.government.se/government-policy/childrens-rights/.

20 Agata D’Addato, Eurochild, ‘Measuring and Monitoring: A Child-rights Perspective’, December 3–4, 2009, 5, http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=8262&langId=en; see also Vandenhole, ‘Child Poverty and Children's Rights’.

21 Dinah Shelton, ‘Introduction’, in International Law and Domestic Legal Systems, ed. Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 1.

22 Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

23 UNCRC, General comment No. 19; UNCRC, Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of France, UN Doc CRC/C/FRA/CO/5 (23 February 2016), paras 10, 14.

24 UNCRC, General Comment No. 5, para.10.

25 Kirsten Roberts Lyer and Philippa Webb, ‘Effective Parliamentary Oversight of Human Rights’, in The International Human Rights Judiciary and National Parliaments, ed. Matthew Saul, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017), 32–58, 42.

26 See generally, Jacob Katz Cogen, ‘The Regulatory Turn in International Law’, Harvard International Law Journal 52 (2011): 321; Antony Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 178 et seq.

27 Aust, Modern Treaty Law, 178 (emphasis original).

28 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969, 115 UNTS 331, entered into force 27 January 1980. Article 26 states: ‘Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed in good faith.’ The Vienna Convention also outlines that states may not invoke internal law for the purposes of avoiding international obligations, see article 27. See Gerald Staberock, ‘Human Rights, Domestic Implementation’, in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, ed. Rüdiger Wolfrum, in MPEPIL, paras. 14–8, http://opil.ouplaw.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1734?rskey=wigK9B&result=4&prd=EPIL (accessed June 18, 2018).

29 The further act will depend on the individual state and its constitutional relationship with international law. For a fuller discussion of the distinction, or lack thereof, between monist and dualist states, see Dinah Shelton, ‘Introduction’, in International Law and Domestic Legal Systems: Incorporation, Transformation, and Persuasion, ed. Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 2–5; Malcolm N. Shaw, International Law, 8th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017), 97–8; Aust, Modern Treaty Law, 183 et seq.

30 UNCRC, General comment No. 19; Staberock, ‘Human Rights, Domestic Implementation’, paras 2–3; Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 86; Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 19.

31 See, for example, Vandenhole’s comments on effectiveness and the right to participation in Vandenhole, ‘Child Poverty and Children's Rights’, 619.

32 Staberock, ‘Human Rights, Domestic Implementation’, para 2.

33 Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Office of the High Commissioner, Human Rights: Handbook for Parliamentarians No 26 (Geneva: Inter-Parliamentary Union, OHCHR, 2016), 97.

34 Karen Kaiser, ‘Treaties, Direct Applicability’, in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, ed. Rüdiger Wolfrum, in MPEPIL, paras. 1–2, http://opil.ouplaw.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1468?rskey=cshtmk&result=2&prd=EPIL (accessed June 28, 2018).

35 Ibid.

36 Dinah Shelton, ‘Human Rights, Remedies’, in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, ed. Rüdiger Wolfrum, in MPEPIL, paras. 1–3, http://opil.ouplaw.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1738?rskey=QnwVH0&result=2&prd=EPIL (accessed June 28, 2018).

37 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3, entered into force 3 January 1976.

38 See discussion in relation to children’s rights and child poverty in Vandenhole, ‘Child Poverty and Children's Rights’, 626 et seq.

39 Katie Boyle and Edel Hughes, ‘Identifying Routes to Remedy for Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, International Journal of Human Rights 22 (2018): 43, 51.

40 The three distinct categories align with Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 3.

41 UNICEF/Innocenti, Law Reform and Implementation, 5.

42 Human Rights Act 1998, introduction. Notably, the Act explicitly excludes ECHR art 13, which ensures an effective remedy for a breach of the Convention, thus the extent to which it is full, direct ‘incorporation’ is debatable, see Vernon Bogdanor, The New British Constitution (Oxford: Hart, 2009), 60.

43 Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

44 UNCRC, Initial reports of States Parties due in 1994: Belgium, 6 September 1994, CRC/C/11/Add.4, para. 5, noting the Mons Court of Appeal of 20 April 1993 ‘not only recognized the direct effect in Belgian domestic law of article 12 of the Convention, and hence the existence of a minor’s real subjective right to be heard, but also established the possibility for the minor to exercise this right through the procedural means of voluntary intervention in the judicial proceeding concerning him.’

45 UNCRC, Initial Reports of States Parties Due in 1994: Belgium, paras. 5, 471.

46 Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 37.

47 UNCRC, Concluding Observations: Belgium, 18 June 2010, CRC/C/BEL/CO/3-4, para. 8.

48 Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group, 11 April 2016, A/HRC/32/8, paras. 139(15), 140(30).

49 Committee against Torture, Concluding Observations on Third Report, 3 January 2014, CAT/C/BEL/CO/3, para. 27.

50 Chambre des représentants, Proposition de loi modifiant le Code civil en ce qui concerne le droit de l'enfant à une éducation non violente et l'interdiction de toutes formes de violences à son égard, Document parlementaire 54K1778, 20 April 2016, http://www.dekamer.be/kvvcr/showpage.cfm?section=flwb&language=fr&cfm=/site/wwwcfm/flwb/flwbn.cfm?dossierID=1778&legislat=54&inst=K. For a fuller analysis of the issue of corporal punishment in Belgium, see Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, Country report for Belgium, https://endcorporalpunishment.org/reports-on-every-state-and-territory/belgium/.

51 Eugenio Hernández-Bretón, ‘Venezuela’, in International Law and Domestic Legal Systems, ed. Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 661. The treaties are first approved for ratification by the legislature.

52 UNCRC, Combined Third to Fifth Periodic Reports of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 13 October 2014, CRC/C/VEN/3-5, paras. 6, 8.

53 Ibid., paras. 8–9.

54 Ibid., paras. 6–11.

55 US Department of Labour, Child Labor Report: Venezuela (2015), https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/images/ilab/child-labor/Venezuela.pdf.

56 Humanium reports that almost 40% of Venezuelan children live below the poverty line and that one in 10 is not educated. Humanium, Children of Venezuela, https://www.humanium.org/en/venezuela/ (accessed June 18, 2018).

57 UNCRC, Concluding Observation on the Combined Third to Fifth Periodic Reports of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, paras. 25–6, 30–1.

58 UNCRC, Initial reports of States Parties due in 1992: Sweden, 23 September 1992, CRC/C/3/Add.1, para. 3.

59 UNCRC, Concluding observations: Sweden, 5 March 2015, CRC/C/SWE/CO/5; see also Eliasson, ‘The Gap between Formalised Children’s Rights’, 470; Hans Eklund, ‘Article 12 of the “UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child” and the Procedural Status of Children in Sweden’, Scandinavian Studies in Law 51 (2007): 163.

60 Sweden, ‘English summary of SOU 2016:19’, 54.

61 Sweden, ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child Will Become Swedish Law’.

62 Government Offices of Sweden, ‘Questions and Answers on Incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Swedish Law’, http://www.government.se/articles/2017/07/questions-and-answers-on-incorporating-the-un-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-into-swedish-law/.

63 Kasey McCall-Smith, ‘Interpreting International Human Rights Standards: Treaty Body General Comments as a Chisel or Hammer?’, in Tracing the Role of Soft Law in Human Rights, ed. Stéphanie Lagoutte et al. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016), chapter 2.

64 Sweden, ‘Questions and Answers on Incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’.

65 UNCRC, Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of France, 23 February 2016, CRC/C/FRA/CO/5.

66 Tobin, ‘Increasingly Seen and Heard’, 86; Bruce Ackerman, ‘The Rise of World Constitutionalism’, Virginia Law Review 83 (1997): 771; C. R. Sunstein, Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3–11, 239–43.

67 Constitución Política de la República de Chile, art 5, para 2.

68 UNCRC, Initial Report of States Parties due in 1993: Chile, 22 June 1993, CRC/C/3/Add.18, para 6.

69 UNCRC, Fourth and Fifth Periodic Reports of States Parties Due in 2012, Chile, 10 November 2014, CRC/C/CHL/4-5, para. 5.

70 Ibid., paras. 8–9.

71 Ibid., paras. 26–9.

72 UNCRC, Initial Reports of States Parties Due in 1995: Kingdom of Morocco, 19 August 1995, CRC/C/28/Add.1, para 3.

73 Moroccan Constitution of 2011, English translation by Jefri J. Ruchti, Title II at https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Morocco_2011.pdf?lang=en.

74 UNCRC, Concluding Observations on the Combined Third and Fourth Periodic Reports of Morocco, 14 October 2014, CRC/C/MAR/CO/3-4, paras. 10–11, 16–7.

75 Ibid., paras. 36–7.

76 The Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011.

77 UNCRC, Concluding observation on the fifth periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 12 July 2016, CRC/C/GBR/CO/5, paras. 30-1.

78 Helen Dale and Arwyn Roberts, ‘Little Voices Shouting Out: Children’s Report from Wales to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, July 1, 2015, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/GBR/INT_CRC_NGO_GBR_23430_E.pdf.

79 See also Hoffman’s article in this issue, for further analyses of the Welsh measure.

80 See discussion in Alice de Jonge, ‘Australia, Venezuela’, in International Law and Domestic Legal Systems, ed. Dinah Shelton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 27–8.

81 Kasey McCall-Smith, ‘Human Rights Treaty Bodies, Proceduralization and the Development of Human Rights Jus Commune’ (European Society of International Law 2015 Annual Conference, 2015), 1.

82 Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, No 186, 2011, §§3, 8, https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2011A00186 (accessed June 18, 2018).

83 National Children’s Commissioner, Children’s Rights Report 2016 (Sydney: Australian Human Rights Commission, 2016), 56–9.

84 Lundy et al., The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 34.

85 UNCRC, Concluding observations: Australia, 28 August 2012, CRC/C/AUS/CO/4, para. 19.

86 Ibid., paras. 19, 29–30, 35–8, 46–7.

87 Secretary, Department of Health and Community Services (NT) v JWB and SMB (1992) 175 CLR 218 (Marion’s Case). See discussion in Laura Elliott, ‘Victims of Violence: The Forced Sterilisation of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Australia’, Laws 6 (2017): §4.1; Susan Brady et al., ‘The Sterilisation of Girls and Young Women: Issues & Progress’, Australian Human Rights Commission, 2009, https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/disability_rights/sterilisation/sterilisation_report.pdf.

88 UNCRC, Concluding Observations: Australia, para. 12

89 See, for example, Oona A. Hathaway, ‘Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?’, Yale Law Journal 111 (2002): 1935.

90 UNICEF/Innocenti, Law Reform and Implementation, viii.