The Right to a Family Environment for "Children Living in Exceptionally Difficult Conditions" |
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| Authors: | GARY B MELTON |
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| Institution: | director of the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina, where he is also professor of neuropsychiatry and behavioral science and adjunct professor of law, pediatrics, and psychology. He directs the Consortium on Children, Families, and the Law, and he organized and moderated the symposium from which this special issue developed. He is also president of Childwatch International, a global network of child research centers. Professor Melton served as a member of the American Bar Association's Working Group on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. |
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| Abstract: | Building on earlier, non-binding international instruments, the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a right to a family environment for children in general, but it also elaborates this right in a variety of contexts in which children are in especially difficult conditions. These provisions are legally binding in the scores of countries that have ratified the Convention. Such provisions are also illustrative of the Convention's conceptual coherence and comprehensiveness, its broad "constitutional" language, and its establishment of structures for monitoring and implementation. |
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