Towards child-centred justice as a system-level paradigm shift: conceptualising a new framework through the Scottish whole system approach

In recent years, child-centred justice has emerged as a recurring reference in
international policy and academic discussions concerning justice for children. Invoked increasingly in connection with children's rights and child-friendly justice reforms, the concept nonetheless remains conceptually under-defined and unevenly operationalised, often used interchangeably with adjacent notions without sufficient clarity regarding its distinctive scope or practical implications.
We examine this question in two ways. First, it examines the concept of child-centred justice, primarily drawing on the Global Declaration on Advancing Child-Centred Justice of the 2025 World Congress on Justice With Children. Second, it explores how child-centred justice can be operationalised at system level, using Scotland's Whole System Approach (WSA) as an example. Rather than
presenting this model as a blueprint for replication, the analysis considers what the Scottish experience reveals about key design principles and implementation pathways that can inform child-centred justice globally.