More on Children's Rights

Jonathan Watson adds to Rick's criticisms of the UN Convention on Children's Rights, starting with Article 13's proclaimed right to "receive information":

Theoretically, a child could bring a suit against the parents under this convention for preventing the child from accessing certain materials or internet tools which are deemed unharmful by the State or the U.N. One might think of internet chat rooms or instant messengers, to which many parents block or deny access. It is true that Article 14 has one line concerning States' respect for parental control and guidance, but it is surrounded in Arts. 13 and 14 by potential qualifiers, such as "[f]reedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law...."

Article 16 would call into question the U.S. current legal interpretation of free speech, as it makes "attacks on [the child's] honour and reputation" subject to legal action. We currently require more than mere name calling to initiate a slander or liable action, but it would seem like mere name calling could fall under this article. . . .

Article 24(2)(f) notes that States should provide preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services. If this is truly only a document about the rights of a child, why are family planning services discussed? Is this for pre-teen / teenage children who might bear a child? Or is this to help children have the best resources and family situation possibly by providing contraception and / or abortion to prevent younger siblings?

And St. Thomas alum Pat Shrake sees the abortion problem looming in Article 16, which provides that: "[n]o child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy . . . [and] the child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."  As Pat says, it's "easy to imagine how that could be construed in an anti-Catholic way."  He also directs us to a blistering critique of the Convention from the Heritage Foundation.

I share many of these misgivings, and remain leery of expanded applications of "rights talk" in general.  Still, the status of the child seems an eminently wortwhile object of international law's pedagogical function (to the extent it can be said to have such a function).  Perhaps the Convention's ambition runs afoul of subsidiarity, but the project's impetus strikes me as sensible.  I'm wondering how Catholic legal theory might frame a Convention on the Child that can articulate culturally transcendent and practically meaningful norms without subverting the family's primacy in this area . . .

Rob