This handbook was launched on 24 November 2005 on the occasion of a seminar organised in Athens by the Greek Network for the prevention and combating of corporal punishment of children with the cooperation of the Council of Europe. The aim of the book is to highlight the human rights obligation of European countries to end corporal punishment of children. It presents the main international legal instruments available in this field as well as the situation in Council of Europe member states.
This volume provides a series of critical analyses of some of the contemporary debates in relation to the human rights of children, resituating them within visions which informed the text of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. The studies embrace examination of some of today's widespread interpretations of the CRC, analysis of what is implied by a human rights-based approach in research and advocacy and consideration of advances and barriers to research and to several aspects of CRC implementation. With contributions by leading experts in the field, the book examines the CRC as an international instrument, its inherent dilemmas and some of the debates generated by the challenges of implementation. It embraces examinations of different levels of governance from the international to the state party, regional and local levels, including institutional developments and changes in law, policy and practice. The book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy-makers working in the area of children's rights and welfare.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights as it relates to children. It includes detailed analysis of the Court's key decisions on children's rights, highlighting its achievements as well as offering informed critique of its ongoing weaknesses.
Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: Merit, 68%, University of Warwick (Coventry Business School), course: Module Human Rights in Europe, language: English, abstract: The analysis undertaken in this dissertation gives attention to three core foci of examination. The first two are international legal documents used in the protection of human rights: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) from 1989 and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) from 1950. The third focal point consists of an investigation into a specific area of jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) regarding the protection of human rights of children: the phenomenon of the corporal punishment and abuse of children in the UK. This selection of verdicts of the European Court aims at portraying how the ECHR impacts on the child’s human rights in practice and how well the work of the European Court reflects the values enshrined in the CRC and also gain an understanding of how the two conventional systems might impact on the other. The third chapter investigates verdicts of the Court that have dealt with cases that derive from institutional settings (judicial corporal punishment and punishment in public schools). The fourth chapter will observe private settings, where cases of corporally punished children relate to the private sphere (e.g. punishment through parents). Beside, it is intended to give a short outlook on two selected cases where a matter of more general abuse of children was under judicial scrutiny. The dissertation concludes that both the CRC and the ECHR are characterised by a number of more or less serious flaws and drawbacks in relation to the protection of children’s human rights. The narrow textual scope of the ECHR and the significant weaknesses of the CRC regarding its implementation mechanism are two prominent examples. The paper suggests that in Europe, the trend of maximising the potential of the European Convention by combining the widely accepted, detailed standards on children’s rights set out in the UN Convention with the highly successful and influential system of individual petition and implementation should find its continuation and be strengthened even further.
The core of this book is a detailed analysis of the status of corporal punishment of children, including Areasonable spankings by parents, under international human rights law. The analysis leads compellingly to the conclusion that such punishment is indeed a human rights violation, consonant with modern norms about right and decent treatment of juveniles. The book further provides a comparative analysis between the domestic laws of the seventeen nations that ban all corporal punishment of children (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Israel, Italy, and Portugal) and examples of the domestic laws in the countries that still permit some physical chastisement of children (United States and Canada). Because it is anticipated that a good number of readers will be surprised to learn that this disciplinary practice has become a human rights law violation, the book also engages in an in-depth exegesis of the psychological evidence and historical and philosophical reasons warranting prohibition of all corporal punishment of children as an imperative policy choice. The work probes as well why, once that choice is made, it is essential to use legal bans on the punishment inasmuch as they have uniquely effective pedagogical and therapeutic roles and give some permanence to humanity’s hard won understanding about protecting the young from violence. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.
An indispensable guide for university students, government officials and legal practitioners alike. The European Convention on Human Rights – Principles and law is the essential handbook for university students, government officials, lawyers and human rights advocates seeking a comprehensive and concise account of the case law generated under the European Convention on Human Rights. Written by experts on the Convention, it: • cites nearly 1 500 cases, providing links to each case in the HUDOC database; • identifies key challenges and current legal developments; • provides suggestions for further reading on contentious issues; • is a companion text to Council of Europe’s book The individual application under the European Convention on Human Rights – Procedural guide by Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos and Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou.
