New Labour, children's rights and the United Nations: 'could do better'

An encounter between the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the UK government could not reasonably be expected to be a meeting of minds. Indeed, the occasional forays of the UNCRC into the insular world of UK child welfare policy are a welcome and refreshing reminder that elsewhere different standards apply. In October of 2002, the UNCRC issued its second and most recent judgment on overall UK policy and practice with respect to children’s rights (UNCRC, 2002). Their report is an outcome of the obligation on countries which have ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘the UN Convention’) – all except the USA and Somalia have done so – to submit 5-yearly progress reports on implementation. The current UNCRC report is the Committee’s response to the UK government’s second report on implementation, submitted to the Committee in 1999 (United Kingdom, 1999). The previous UNCRC report (UNCRC, 1995) was highly critical of UK practice on children’s rights.