Although the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been around for more than two decades, it has in many places just begun to make its way into the courtroom. Many countries have taken steps to incorporate the Convention into their national laws and policies, and these accomplishments must not be overlooked. Nevertheless, CRIN believes that for children to enjoy the full benefits of their rights under the CRC, they must be able to enforce them directly in court.
To encourage children and their advocates to think about bringing violations of the CRC to the justice system, we have assembled a collection of case law where courts have used the CRC in their decision-making process. The CRC has not always fared well in legal decisions, but we hope that reviewing CRC case law will prove to be inspirational and help us learn about the potential for (and limits of) advancing children's rights through litigation.
This database contains judgments from high-level national and international courts around the world. Each decision is presented in summary form with plain English explanations of the background, significance, and CRIN's assessment of the decision's consistence with the CRC as we understand it. Case summaries also include excerpts from relevant judicial discussions of the CRC and, where possible, links to full text decisions.
As this is an ongoing project, we hope and plan to add new cases to the database on a regular basis. If you are aware of any cases that should be included or have additional information on cases that have already been summarized, we would greatly appreciate your input. Our goal is to make this project as helpful to you and your work in children's rights as possible; please email info@crin.org with suggestions on ways that we could add to or improve the database.
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Read our analysis of the case law contained within the database here.
Case Law Instruments
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Children's Rights WIKI
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