Children's Rights: New Issues, New Themes, New Perspectives

This collection of essays by a variety of scholars, compiled to celebrate the silver anniversary of The International Journal of Children’s Rights, builds on work already in the literature to reveal where we are now at and how the law concerned with children is reacting to new developments. New, or relatively new subject matter is explored, such as film classification, intersex genital mutilation, the right to development. Rights within the context of sport are given an airing. We are offered new perspectives on discipline, on the significance of “rights flowing downhill,” on the so-called six “ General Principles.“ The uses to which the CRC is put in legal reasoning in some legal systems is critically examined. Though not intended as an audit, the collection offers a fascinating image of where the field of children's right is at now, the progress that has been made, and what issues will require work in the future.

Michael Freeman is Professor Emeritus of English Law at University College, London, Fellow of the British Academy, and a Barrister of Gray's Inn. He is the Founding Editor of The International Journal of Children's Rights and the author of The Rights and Wrongs of Children (1983), The Moral Status of Children (1997), and Children, their Families and the Law(1992) . He was the Editor of Current Legal Problems for many years and a Founding Editor of The International Journal of Law in Context. He has been selected to give the 2015 Hamlyn Lectures on Children's Rights. He also writes on medical issues and on legal theory; the 9th edition of his Introduction to Jurisprudence was published in 2014.