Giving Children a Voice: Institutional Design & Evolution in the United Nations

• In Event: IO Institutional Design

Abstract

In 2011, twenty-one years after the Convention of the Child was adopted, the United Nations added a mechanism which gives children the ability to submit legal complaints. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a broad, comprehensive treaty that covers a wide range of rights including the right to choose a religion, peaceful assembly, and education. Thus far, only 50 of the 196 countries that have ratified the CRC allow these individual, legal complaints. The majority of complaints filed-- nearly three quarters-- concern migration, focused primarily on children fleeing North Africa to European destination countries. We contend that the CRC Committee and UN member states did not foresee how the individual petition mechanism would be used to advance migrants’ rights when it was negotiated and entered into force. Instead, opening access to victims of abuse altered the topics considered by the organization in unforeseen ways. This research speaks to important literatures in international relations regarding institutional design and evolution, human rights, and non-state actor access to justice. We hope our project will explain how empowering marginalized actors can change institutions and policy outcomes.

Authors

• Rachel Schoner, Tulane University

• Andrea Vilan, American University