Children and the Rights of Citizens: Nondomination and Intergenerational Justice

Abstract

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasizes the importance of the temporal dimension of childhood and children’s need for special protection. Such protection is necessary because of their susceptibility to domination, especially intergenerational domination. The same is true for past and future generations, where such domination includes the domination of and by the current generation of children, especially around intergenerational, public goods important for a good human life. Such an account of intergenerational justice captures the focus of the CRC’s Preamble on improving the quality of the lives of children.