The Child's Right to Development

This book provides a comprehensive account of how child development and the right to development of children have been understood in international children's rights law. It argues that any conceptions of childhood focussed either on children's future as adults, or on children's lives in the present, overlook the hybridity of children's lived experiences. The book therefore suggests a new conception of childhood - namely, 'hybrid childhood' - which accommodates respect for children's agency and human dignity in the present, in the process of growth, and in the outcomes of this process when the child becomes an adult. Consequently, and building on the capability approach's idea of human development, the book presents a radical new interpretation of the child's right to development under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It offers a comprehensive interpretation of the right to development, which is one of the four guiding principles of the Convention.

Introduction; 1. Embedding the protection of 'child development' into international children's rights law; 2. Creating the right to development of children; 3. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's interpretation of the right to development; 4. Exploring the meanings of human and child development; 5. A new framework for analysing the child's right to development; Conclusion.

Noam Peleg is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia, where he researches and teaches international children's rights law and family law. He has published and presented widely on children's rights matters and also has consulted for non-governmental organisations in the United Kingdom and Australia. Noam is the book review editor and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Children's Rights. Before moving to academia, Peleg practised law in several human rights NGOs, where he specialised in representing children in courts.