Children’s rights and children’s welfare after the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Abstract

This article addresses how far international rights charters and the rights claims they give rise to act as levers for development through a discussion of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified rights Convention of recent times. It recognizes the seminal importance of rights charters but also argues that the Convention is a relatively weak instrument when it comes to changing the material realities of vulnerable children’s lives, especially in the Global South. The difficulties of attaching welfare agendas to rights claims are discussed in the article.