This book examines how developing law and policies in England and Wales simultaneously promote and undermine children's rights.

Children’s rights law is often studied and perceived in isolation from the broader field of human rights law. This volume explores the inter-relationship between children’s rights law and more general human rights law in order to see whether elements from each could successfully inform the other. Children’s rights law has a number of distinctive characteristics, such as the emphasis on the ‘best interests of the child’, the use of general principles, and the inclusion of ‘third parties’ (e.g. parents and other care-takers) in treaty provisions. The first part of this book questions whether these features could be a source of inspiration for general human rights law. In part two, the reverse question is asked: could children’s rights law draw inspiration from developments in other branches of human rights law that focus on other specific categories of rights holders, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, or older persons? Finally, the interaction between children’s rights law and human rights law – and the potential for their isolation, inspiration or integration – may be coloured or determined by the thematic issue under consideration. Therefore the third part of the book studies the interplay between children’s rights law and human rights law in the context of specific topics: intra-family relations, LGBTQI marginalization, migration, media, the environment and transnational human rights obligations.

As the world becomes smaller, family law is becoming truly global, giving rise to more and more questions for private international law. This book looks at the sensitive and complex question of child abduction, with a unique child rights perspective. Taking Islamic law as its case study, it delves into child abduction in key jurisdictions from Iran to Saudi Arabia and Libya to Pakistan. Rigorous doctrinal analysis is enhanced by empirical insights, namely interviews with abductees, parents and professionals. It is an excellent guide to a complicated field.

This book examines how child protection law has been shaped by the transition to late modernity and how it copes with the ever-changing concept of risk. The book traces the evolution of the contemporary child protection system through historical changes, assessing the factors that have influenced the development of legal responses to abuse over a 130-year period. It does so by focussing on the Republic of Ireland where child protection has become emblematic of wider social change. The work draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources including legislation, case law and official and media reports of child protection inquiries. It also utilises insights developed through an extensive examination of parliamentary debates on child protection matters. These materials are assessed through the lens of critical discourse analysis to explore the relationship between law, social policy and social theory as they effect child protection. While the book utilises primarily Irish sources, this multidisciplinary approach ensures the argument has international applicability. The book will be a valuable resource for all those with an interest in the development of child protection law.

This book is dedicated to a topic which has for a long time lacked the attention it deserves within the academic world. It intends to address in a coherent and comprehensive manner the problem of the environmental rights of the child, which are not identical to the ones of adults whose environmental rights have been appraised from a general point of view. In the absence of any international law instrument explicitly granting a child the right to a clean environment, drawing on an extensive and original analysis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the practice of its monitoring body, this book undertakes an assessment of the extent to which these challenges may be overcome through a greater engagement between international law on the rights of the child and international environmental law. The result is the first comprehensive study on the manner in which these two mutually reinforcing legal regimes can interact to strengthen the protection of children’s environmental human rights at stake in the increased strategic environmental and climate litigations at both the national and international level. The book is recommended reading for, amongst others, policy makers, international environmental lawyers and human rights lawyers and practitioners. Additionally, lecturers, students and researchers from a range of disciplines will also gain from seeing how new legal scholarship and intertwined branches of international law contribute to the continual development of the living rights of the human rights conventions. Francesca Ippolito is Associate Professor of International Law in the Department of Political and Social Science of the University of Cagliari, Italy. She holds the Jean Monnet Chair on European Climate of Change - REACT for 2021-2024.

Japan has faced widespread scrutiny for failing to properly address international parental child abduction involving its citizens. This book examines how and why Japan has come to have this tarnished image, its response, and how it might manage these disputes in the future. In particular, the book explores how Japan engages with international legal frameworks to manage international parental child abduction and what this means, in reality, for Japanese people and others who come under its wide umbrella. A focus of this examination is how the key international treaty, the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, has fared since being introduced in Japan in 2014. Case studies of parental child abduction involving Japan are used throughout to illustrate the legal and social concepts discussed in the book. The struggles of both abducting and left-behind parents across fluid international borders reveal seismic social and philosophical shifts in Japan that continue to shape its legal landscape. This book will be a useful resource for students of Japanese Studies, Sociolegal Studies, Comparative Law and International Law.

Legal and behavioral science scholars examine the significance of the recent changes in laws affecting child and youth services and the conflicts those changes have engendered. Providers of child and youth services now can have at their fingertips the most recent information on changes in the law related to consent to treatment by children, special education, child abuse policy, procedural reform in divorce custody resolution, and juvenile justice reform. Some of the timely issues addressed in this highly acclaimed volume include the fall of the rehabilitative ideal in the juvenile justice system, the increasing concern for juvenile's procedural rights, child custody disputes, and laws regulating educational and treatment services. Legal Reforms Affecting Child and Youth Services is an essential volume for providers of services in education, pediatrics, mental health, juvenile justice, and child welfare. The authors integrate legal analyses of key concepts with discussion of potential behavioral science contributions to formulation and implementation of legal reforms. In each instance, the implications of these reforms for service delivery systems are explored with attention to gaps in available research and ambiguities in the existing law.