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UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Reflections on Family Law Issues in the Jurisprudence of the CRC Committee: The Convention on the Rights of the Child @ 30
The Chapter aims to analyse the most recent family-related jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee), trying to identify evolution of child-rights concepts and issues in the family context and progress in the implementation of the respective provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Chid (CRC). It highlights those issues where there is limited consensus, or no consensus achieved at all (yet), and which therefore require clarification. The Chapter is primarily based, apart from the academic sources and reports, on the analysis of the Committee’s interpretation of the provisions of the CRC particularly expressed in its Concluding Observations issued to State parties and its General Comments. The discussion is not focused on any specific countries or regions, though as a matter of fact some thematic issues are more relevant to some region[s] than others.
The Chapter consists of two parts. Part One, appearing in the 2019 issue of the Survey, includes discussion of the concept of family, the principle of non-discrimination, child’s evolving capacities, parental rights, child marriage, polygamy as far as it relates to children’s rights, and issues related to the status of child born through surrogacy. The main focus of Part Two, which will be in the 2020 issue of the Survey, covers issues of childhood statelessness, the child’s right to family environment, separation of children from the family, adoption, as well as the rights of children in the context of international migration. Thirty years of implementation of the Convention have demonstrated that family-related child rights issues not only continue to provoke hot debates but also evolve, often changing their forms or even transforming into a completely new issue, and, therefore, continue to be central to the work and jurisprudence of the CRC Committee.
