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15 US-China L. Rev. 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/uschinalrw15 and id is 1 raw text is: US-China Law Review, January 2018, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1-17 doi: 10.17265/1548-6605/2018.01.001 Theoretical and Normative Foundation of Child Rights* Uchenna Emelonye Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liberia Based on the conceptual appreciation of human rights as explicitly normative, this paper sets out the philosophical and normative foundation of human rights as a basis for extrapolating the philosophical and normative foundation of child rights. It views human rights as those broadly recognized fundamental global standards of morality that inhere in human beings by virtue of their humanity and which are normatively instituted. Predicated on the argument that child rights share a philosophical heritage with human rights, child rights are construed to be those rights that are normatively established and are specifically and affirmatively applicable to children because of their age, level of mental development, inherent vulnerability, and mitigated culpability. Keywords: child rights, juvenile justice, theory, foundation Philosophical Foundation of Child Rights The philosophical foundation of child rights is very contestable. Langlois's (2009; 2002) postulated that there are several philosophical foundations of human rights which could be stretched to apply to the philosophical foundation of child rights. Although the classical philosophical divides of human rights may not specifically speak to child rights, the latter could be extrapolated from the general philosophical foundations of human rights. There is no gainsaying the fact that since child rights are an integral component of human rights, the philosophical foundation of child rights is essentially linked to the broad philosophical foundation of human rights (Bunch, 1990; Binion, 1995). There are several philosophical foundations of law that present distinct and most times interrelated heritage of human rights. They include the natural law, positive law, sociological, Marxism, realism, utilitarianism, and historical and anthropological foundations. While all of these theoretical foundations have bearing on the conception of law in general and human rights in particular, they are not uniformly relevant to the universalist conception of child rights. Consequently, this paper will not explore all the available theoretical foundations of human rights but will focus on those deemed very useful in extrapolating the theoretical foundation of child rights and also essential in illuminating and contextualizing the philosophical preferences of this paper.1 Natural Law There are various strands of natural law with their theoretical underpinning based on the existence of a Acknowledgement: This paper is written in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of the United Nations. Uchenna Emelonye, Dr., country representative, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liberia. This article excludes the review of the historical and anthropological foundations of human rights because they are amongst other things based on the inner conscience of the people and somewhat opposed to the universal application of human rights in general and child rights in particular.

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