Rebecca Thorburn Stern

Project summary

The Convention on the Rights of the Child as national law: does it make a difference for children seeking asylum?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been ratified by virtually every country in the world. The Convention applies to all children within a state’s jurisdiction, which means that the Convention and the rights it protects also apply to children seeking asylum. Today, more than 60 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced, half of whom are children. By emphasising children as rights holders and individuals in their own right, the Convention has an important role to play in ensuring that children going through an asylum process, in which their right to international protection is assessed, have their rights respected and fulfilled.

 

The impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child at national level depends to a considerable extent on its legal status under domestic law. An international convention can be incorporated into national law in different ways. The approach advocated by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is incorporation, whereby the Convention is made part of national law and thus becomes directly applicable in individual cases before courts and public authorities.

 

The overall aim of the research project is to examine how the legal status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in domestic law affects the extent to which the rights enshrined in the Convention are given effect for children in the asylum process, with particular emphasis on the significance of incorporation.