Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 64, No. 4, 2008, pp.

701--723

The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations:

Developmental Theory and the Politics
of Childrens Rights
Colette Daiute
City University of New York

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), U.N. General Assembly (1989)
is a major breakthrough in defining children as fully human and working to ensure
them the attendant benefits worldwide. While childrens rights as equal human be-
ings may seem obvious in the 21st century, the politics of establishing and ensuring
such rights are contentious. The CRC is a brilliant negotiation of conceptions of
the child and international relations, yet certain tensions in the childrens rights
process lead to a lack of clarity in a global situation that continues to leave millions
of children at risk. Analyzing the CRC and related practices from a developmental
perspective can help identify obstacles to the advancement of childrens rights,
especially those related to opportunities for rights-based thinking and the exercise
of self-determination and societal-determination rights.
In this article, I offer a qualitative analysis of childrens rights in the context
of what I refer to as the CRC activity-meaning system. I present a theoretical
framework for considering this system of policy and practice as enacted in the
CRC treaty and related monitoring, reporting, qualifying, and implementing doc-
uments. A discourse analysis of conceptions of the child and those responsible
for ensuring their rights in seven representative documents (including the CRC
Treaty, a report by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, minutes of a
U.N. Security Council meeting, reports by a State-Party, and a report by a civil so-
ciety group in that country) reveals tensions inherent in the CRC activity-meaning
system.1 Emerging from this analysis is a tension between childrens rights and
nations rights. Created in part via explicit and implicit assumptions about child
development in the CRC as these posit responsibilities across actors in the broader

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Colette Daiute, The Graduate Cen-
ter, City University of New York, 365 5th Ave., New York, NY 10016 [e-mail: [email protected]].
1
Documents for this analysis were selected to represent the major actors in the CRC system and
to provide a case study following a sequence of required and alternative reports related to activities by
one State-Party (Colombia) over a period of several years.
701
"
C 2008 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
702 Daiute

CRC system, this tension challenges the implementation of childrens rights and
the development of childrens rights-based understandings. I use this analysis to
explain why future research and practice should address the development of chil-
drens rights-based understanding not only in terms of maturation or socialization
but also as integral to salient conflicts in their every day lives.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, U.N. General Assembly,
1989) is an international treaty adopted by the 159 Members of the United Nations
General Assembly in 1989 and subsequently ratified by all but two U.N. member
nations (the U.S.2 and Somalia). The CRC consists of a Preamble and 54 Articles
stating the rights of the child and the responsibilities of States Parties in
ensuring those rights. The Convention outlines social, economic, cultural, civil,
and political rights assured via binding processes of implementing and monitoring
by ratifying states. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
(the CRC Committee) is central in orchestrating this process designed to provide
an international mechanism for monitoring progress on implementation of the
Convention working with other Treaty Bodies, United Nations agencies, and
other organizations to promote the Convention and the realization of the rights
of the Child. This CRC system is, moreover, the first human rights treaty that
involves nongovernmental organizations with an official role in reporting on its
implementation (www.crin.org). The CRC also advocates that children have a say
in matters that affect them, but, as I will show, their perspectives enter into the
dialogue mostly via alternative reports and research.
Most scholarly discussion about the CRC focuses on the treaty document
itself, but it is in this broader CRC system of activities that we can identify is-
sues related to ensuring or limiting childrens rights. A potential contribution of
developmental psychology is to analyze the conception of the child, how this con-
ception fits with the politics of international relations required for ensuring rights,
and any tensions resulting from such interdisciplinary endeavors. Identifying these
tensions is important for understanding challenges to implementing the CRC and
for designing research on childrens rights-based understanding and participation.
Toward these ends, this article presents an analysis of the broader CRC system,
including the treaty and documents enacting related monitoring, reporting, and
qualifying activities.
After a brief description of the CRC, I discuss the analytic design in terms
of a sociocultural activity theory of human development, present the discourse

2
There has been little written about the reasons for the United States failure to ratify the
CRC. In personal communication, Roger Hart, who has been involved in the CRC development and
implementation reports legal and political reasons. The United States has claimed that individual states
must approve all treaty signatures, which not all states have done. In addition, Hart reports political
pressures, in particular, from powerful southern states that did not want to ratify the CRC because of
the apparently expansive nature of childrens rights to make decisions about issues like birth control
independently of their parents.
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 703

analysis methodology derived from this theory, and review results of the analysis.
Based on these results, I explain how notions of child development implicit in the
CRC document leave childrens rights vulnerable to the politics of treaty-making.
Results of the analysis also suggest the need to make sociopolitical aspects of
child development more explicit, especially in relation to childrens rights-based
understandings and opportunities for childrens self-determination.
Questions guiding the inquiry include: What is the nature of childrens rights
discourse across the CRC activity-meaning system? What tensions emerge from an
analysis of the broader CRC activity-meaning system? How could these tensions
affect opportunities for childrens development of rights-based understandings and
practices of self-determination rights? What developmental theory might allow
for critical and creative analyses of childrens rights-based understandings and
actions? Based on the analysis, I will explain that focusing on developmental
theory and the politics of treaty-making suggests the need for a developmental
approach that considers children as social beings who interact with the material and
symbolic circumstances in their environments, including the political processes
like rights, which are essential to their lives.

The CRC

The following excerpts illustrate the CRC discourse.

From the Preamble
. . . the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has
proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. . .
From Article 12
States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her
own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child,
the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and
maturity of the child.
From Article 14
States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion . . . [and] shall respect the rights and duties of the parents
and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the
exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of
the child.
From Article 38
States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained
the age of fifteen years into their armed forces.
Scholars argue that participation by 193 nations suggests that the Convention
is an advance of modern civilization, because childrens status as complex persons
704 Daiute

with rights worth international and local protection was first mentioned in Dec-
laration of the Rights of the Child in 1924 (Hart, S.N., 1982, 1991; Hart, R.A.,
1999). On the other hand, there is also evidence of the limits of the treaty and
its implementation. Scholars have offered numerous critiques of the CRC, stat-
ing that philosophical, legal, political, constitutional, methodological, and cross
cultural aspects of the CRC may serve to facilitate or constrain its effective-
ness (Murphy-Berman & Weisz, 1996, p. 1231). Critics have noted, in particular,
the predominantly Western perspective (Wilcox & Naimark, 1991) and the latent
imperialism embedded in the moral and utopian assumptions guiding such hu-
man rights treaties (Dahbour, 2003; Koshy, 1999). Activists have, however, used
the strong wording of the CRC to advocate for childrens rights and to pressure
governments to create programs for childrens participation (Hart, 1999).
Intrigued with the relationship between nurturance and self-determination
rights, developmental psychologists have examined childrens and adults under-
standings of different categories of rights and responsibilities of ensuring those
rights (Ruck, Abramovitch, & Keating, 1998). Although the CRC and related ac-
tivities rely on certain definitions of the child, relatively little discussion of child
development theory explicitly guides the CRC or interactions between any theo-
retical assumptions and the politics of implementing the CRC. A treaty based on
conceptions like evolving capacities of the child could, for example, usefully
identify those capacities and the nature of their development, especially because
such definitions differ across developmental theories. While leaving open the spe-
cific nature of evolving capacities may allow for diverse interpretations across
cultures (Landsdown, 2005), it also potentially allows cultural and political pow-
ers to override childrens rights. When focusing in this way on the figure of the
child and the nature of development, we ask, for example, what kinds of capac-
ities within and across contexts constitutes maturity to participate in war at age
15, while still requiring that the child adhere to religious and political practices
defined by the family and the State.

Toward a Developmental Reading of Childrens Rights Discourse

Developmental psychology has an important role to play in analyzing the

CRC. Theories of child development, presumably, provide at least some of the
foundation for the rights and responsibilities it advocates. Developmental theory
is implied in the major definitions, principles, and myriad efforts to implement
practices toward improving childrens rights (Hart, 1999). Nevertheless, the docu-
ment offers no explicit discussion about the foundational theory of child develop-
ment. Furthermore, although theory and research on human development remain
implicit, political processes, like State sovereignty are explicit. This contrast is
perhaps not surprising given the power of State Parties for making the Convention
a reality.
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 705

If the treaty endows rights based on evolving capacities but does not de-
fine these capacities nor the circumstances and course of their development, the
nature of the protections remains open to question. While one theory posits that
children are not capable of critical reflection before the age of 12 (Piaget, 1968),
for example another theory posits that critical reflection depends on the nature of
challenges children face in their lives (Burton, Obeidallah, & Allison, 1996). Chil-
dren growing up in the context of war or inequality would, on this view, be able to
reason critically about precisely those issues (Daiute, 2006). Although the purpose
of the CRC is not to define developmental theory, the basis of developmental con-
cepts could affect its interpretation and implementation. We should, thus, address
questions about the theory of child development embedded in the CRC system,
the representation of children as psychosocial actors, and interactions of those
representations with the politics of international treaty-making. Ultimately, being
able to support childrens rights-based understandings and action depends on such
clarity.
A complete review of theories of child development is not possible in this
article, but previous reviews have highlighted several diverse emphases (Damon
& Lerner, 2006). Most developmentalists today recognize the integrated bioso-
ciobehavioral nature of child development in that the maturation of the childs
body and brain relates to experiencing and understanding the social and physical
world. Nevertheless, major theories differ in whether they emphasize biological or
social processes (Damon & Lerner, 2006). Versions of the two most popular the-
ories guiding contemporary research are cognitive developmental theories, which
have made great contributions by explaining the increasingly complex cognitive
organization of the childs mind (Piaget, 1968) and social theories, which have of-
fered explanations of how mind is shaped through symbolic interaction in cultural
systems (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Vygotsky, 1978).
Because there is no explicit discussion of the foundational principles of child
development in or attached to the CRC, I drew on sociocultural theory (Leontev,
1978; Vygotsky, 1978) focusing on the development of higher order processes, like
those required for rights-based understanding and self-determination, as they occur
in the symbolic activity of discourse (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999; Wertsch,
1991). I generated questions, a design, and analysis of child development theory
within the CRC and related activities from the perspective that development is an
interaction of individual and society.
Following the proposal that Every function in the childs cultural develop-
ment appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first
between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychologi-
cal) (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57), the social political context with which children
interact from birth not only affects them but defines them. For this reason, devel-
opmental analysis of childrens rightswhether and how children are treated as
members of sociopolitical lifemust consider how children interact in society, not
706 Daiute

only in terms of abstract cognitive processes but also in terms of what is going on
in their environments. For example, children being recruited to fight on behalf of
their country or to cope with inferior educational systems may perceive that public
institutions are limiting their rights to life, learning, and play, but it is in precisely
such situations where their reflection and any potentially critical results of such
reflection are undermined by the States need for child soldiers or its inability to
provide education.
The sociocultural perspective posits that social institutions shape individuals
and that individuals can transform social institutions (Engestrom & Miettinen,
1999). Consistent with this theory, children must have opportunities for critical
and creative engagement in salient activities, which include exposure to important
relations in society as well as to interpersonal interactions in the peer domain. On
this view, development occurs within actual social processes including conflicts,
and developmental trajectories are defined in terms of social struggles, which may
be debilitating or transcendent. As we see later on, this could mean involving chil-
dren in such activities as discussions of war, social exclusion, or education budgets
rather than protecting them from such discussions. Ideally, civic activities are pos-
itive, like those involving youth as apprentices in social organizations devoted to
improving society, but, in societies at war or with great economic inequalities, civic
activities can be extremely negative. In such contexts, understanding childrens
rights as a developmental process becomes especially important.

Analyzing Childrens Rights Discourses

This inquiry involves applying sociocultural activity theory to design and

implement a discourse analysis of childrens rights policy related to the CRC. The
theory-based design draws on two concepts of sociocultural theory. As with other
legal and policy practices, documents are reference points for a broader range
of activities by institutional actors. Given this way of thinking about childrens
rights policy, I drew on the sociocultural concepts of activity-meaning system and
dialogic relations to generate the research questions, design, and analysis pro-
cess. Activity systems are those symbolically linked interactions of individuals in
meaningful contexts and institutions (Engestrom & Miettinen, 1999). The devel-
opmental idea is that as children grow, they act and interact in relevant culturally
mediated systems, which determine the values, concepts, and practices in their
lives. These values, concepts, and practices are created in discourse and, thus,
build in relation to the specifics of every day life. Childrens rights policy, like
other policies, is embedded within such a system of institutions, activities, and re-
lationships. With the following theoretical formulations, we focus on interactions
across seven different kinds of documents in the CRC system.
Documents, like everyday oral discourse and nonverbal symbol systems, are
created in the midst of activity-meaning systems. Because each document in the
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 707

CRC activity-meaning system occurs within a series of meetings, it is a response to

previous interactions and directed toward future ones (Bakhtin, 1986). Documents,
thus, express dialogic relations in several ways (Bakhtin, 1986). Because they enact
values, policy documents are discursive practices (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999)
available for analysis of the principles, concepts, and tensions involved in society,
which, in our study, is focused on the childrens rights process. The documents
in the CRC system are also dialogic because they are directed explicitly and
implicitly to specific and general audiences of participants in the childrens rights
process. Analyzing language in context, for example, by linking the statements and
values in one document to others in our theory-based system is one among several
techniques mentioned here that makes this a discourse analysis (as compared to a
content analysis that relies only on explicit statements, usually in nouns and verbs
contained in texts). Another element of discourse analysis is paying attention to
the small words, such as the in phrases like the child, implying a universal
form (citations on the increasing use and systematic nature of discourse analysis
include Bakhtin, 1986; Bamberg, 2006; Engestrom & Miettienen, 1999; Harre &
Van Langenhove, 1999).
Drawing on practices such as requirements for follow-up to receipt of a
document also captures this notion of discourse activity system. Periodic reports
by States that ratify the CRC, for example, are responses to a treaty requirement.
Agenda items by the CRC Committee are, in turn, responses to periodic reports,
which may be accepted or discussed for violations at a CRC Committee meeting.
Through such ongoing interactions, participants in the CRC system negotiate the
meaning of childrens rights. Consistent with this view that culture is mediation
in meaningful discourse, we define childrens rights as embedded in a cultural
political system.3
The first phase of the present inquiry was to apply sociocultural theory to
design an analysis of the childrens rights activity-meaning system. This involved
identifying the range of documents that address one another and selecting ex-
emplars of each major phase of the interaction. With the CRC system design
established, I conducted discourse analyses for information about the nature and
relationships among these documents. The discourse analysis focused on identi-
fying the implicit developmental theory in the CRC itself, including definitions of
the child as stated and as implied in the description of rights and responsibilities
and the determination of agents acting on the childs behalf. The next phase of the
discourse analysis involved identifying activities enacted in the CRC documents,
which include qualifying, monitoring, reporting, and implementing. I then discuss
implications of the analysis for allowing children to express and develop their
rights-based understandings.

3
This definition of culture as socially mediated activity differs from definitions of culture as a
set of beliefs and rituals belonging to a specific national, ethnic, gender, class, or other group.
708 Daiute

The CRC Activity-Meaning System

The CRC activity-meaning system is enacted in the CRC treaty and related
documents, as listed in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, this collection includes the
CRC (Preamble and 54 Articles), Declarations and Reservations (Kuper, 1997;
U.N. Treaty Collection, 2001), the U.N. General Assembly Security Council Item
no. 63 on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Child, 61st Session,
the CRC Committee Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties under
Article 44 of the Convention, Concluding Observation: Colombia, 42nd Session,
a State Party Report: Third Periodic Report of Colombia, and the Alternative
Report to the Report of the Government of Colombia on the Situation of the
Rights of the Child. I selected these documents because they represent the major
actors involved in stating, ensuring, and monitoring childrens rights and follow
a sequence of reporting and monitoring for Colombia, a State Party figuring
prominently in the process.
The CRC, like other international treaty practices, involves a system of in-
teractions, like reporting and monitoring by key participants. As shown in the
column labeled Activity-Meaning on Table 1, these documents constitute a sys-
tem of activities including policy making, qualifying, monitoring, and reporting.
This theory-based design provides a way of considering the broader CRC process
relevant to childrens sociopolitical understandings.

Implicit Developmental Theory in the CRC

Reading the CRC document, we ask Who is the child? Who are the childs
agents? What do these representations imply about the childs reasoning and devel-
opment as a social political agent? How do these explicit and implied definitions
of the child occur in relation to the representations of political actors mentioned in
the CRC? The discourse analysis to address these questions involved identifying
all references to the child, those individuals, roles, and institutions defined as
acting on behalf of the child, the nature of relationships among these actors, stated
and implied developmental processes, and qualifications of these relationships
and processes for different categories of rights. After compiling these identifica-
tions, I compared them to those stated in the major contemporary explanations of
development: maturational, socialization, and sociocultural.
The general model of human development embedded in the CRCalthough
not explicitly discussedis one of a gradually maturing organismexpressed in
terms like evolving capacities of the child and will be given weight in accor-
dance with age and maturity. Characteristic of the CRC discourse is its reference
to the child, implying that child is a universal category. The related discourse of
maturation suggests that this universality is biological. At the same time, theres
a process of socialization implied, via expressions about the prominent role of
Table 1. Documents in the CRC Activity-Meaning System for Discourse Analysis

Actor/Document Activity-Meaning

International
1) United Nations CRC Policy-making treaty
2) Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) Qualifying activity
Declarations and reservations to the CRC (State-Parties take issue with CRC)
3) U.N. General Assembly, Security Council Agenda Item no. 63 Monitoring activity
On Promotion & Protection of the Rights of the Child (for State-Party violations & concerns)
61st Session, 26 October 2006
4) Committee on the Rights of the Child, consideration of Monitoring Activity
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations

reports submitted by States Parties under Article 44 (Summary of State Report)

Of the Convention, concluding observations: Colombia,
42nd Session, 2 June 2006 (Re: Colombias 3rd per.report)
5) Committee on the Rights of the Child, Implementation of the Monitoring activity
Convention on the Rights of the Child, Colombia (Request for additional report)
National actors
6) Third periodic report of Colombia (CRC/C/129/Add.6) (8/05) Reporting activity
7) Alternative report to the report of the government of Reporting-monitoring
Colombia on the situation of the Rights of the Child
Local actors
Citations of child and youth perspectives in local programs Reporting child/youth views
709
710 Daiute

States Parties and families to make decisions on the childs behalf, qualifica-
tions like taking into account the rights and duties of the childs parents, and
exceptions such as accommodations to State Parties recruiting children into armed
conflict at age 15 when necessary, although childhood is otherwise protected up
to age 18.

Who is the Child?

As stated in Article 1 of the Convention, a child means every human being

below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child,
majority is attained earlier.
The childs status as an individual person, like all other humans, is the basis
for rights in the CRC. Results of the analysis reveal explicit and implicit repre-
sentations of the child, as an individual person deserving of human rights, yet
vulnerable, emergent, dependent, and determined by the broader social structures
of the family and the state. Because the child described in the CRC matures only
gradually, he or she is deemed in need of protection until the age of 18, except in
the case of armed conflict, when this age can be lowered to 15.
For the most part, the child is represented as in need of protection and, thus,
vulnerable in the face of myriad threats. Most of the rights are based on the childs
physical or cognitive immaturity and attendant needs for shelter, sustenance, pro-
tection from abuse, protection from coercion, exploitation, and harmful activities
like unhealthy labor and armed conflict. The details of the Articles also represent
the child as singular, passive, and generic. The childs status as an individual is
underscored in rights to privacy, respect, reputation, honor, dignity. Although
vulnerable, the child is eventually able to exercise rights, although the nature of
transition to increased ability is not stated.
As stated in one quarter of the 54 articles (Hart, 1999), the child is endowed
with some rights to participation such as the right to express views in matters
that affect him or her and to assemble peacefully. Although included, participation
rights are always qualified to be consistent with the interests of the State. Moreover,
rights to freedom from discrimination based on culture, race, creed, and other
unique qualities are granted the child through the family and the State, thus
limiting the childs self- and societal-determination.
An implication of a developmental trajectory comes from statements like the
child should be prepared to live an individual life in society, consistent with the
spirit and ideals of the United Nations spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom,
equality, and solidarity. The CRC does not mention milestones or qualitative shifts
in the childs understanding or behavior across the years from birth to 18, which
leaves discretion about different levels of maturity to the family and the State.
In the absence of a description of developmental processes, the default model is
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 711

one of socialization to local values and practices that the child would presumably
internalize by age 18.

Who are the Childs Agents?

The CRC represents two primary agents on the childs behalf: the family
environment and State Parties. The childs relationships are, thus, hierarchical
in terms of membership in a family that protects and socializes the child and
membership in the State that protects and socializes the family. Analyses reveal a
range of family responsibilities and rights, including the familys role in providing
a home for the child and the familys role in social reproduction (such as in their
responsibility to provide the child with a name and language). As stated in the
Preamble, parties to the Convention declare they are Convinced that the family
as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth
and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the
necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities
within the community. As the primary agent for the child, the family is defined
in Article 5: parents or, where applicable, the members of the extended family
or community as provided for by local custom, legal guardians or other persons
legally responsible for the child.
The family provides continuity for social reproduction, by providing iden-
tity in a name, heritage language, and harmonious development of his or her
personality. The designation of the family environment may seem obvious as
the childs primary domain of nurturance, especially to those of us in Western
industrial and postindustrial societies, but the family is also a mediator for divisive
issues, like culture, religion, and politics. The nesting of the childs rights within
the institution of the family is, for example, a way that the CRC allows for the
protection of traditional values, practices, and ideologies. What this designation
misses, however, is the childs participation in societyas a means of develop-
ment and as a potentially transformative force of social change should children, for
example, disagree with family practices or participate in new activities auguring
trajectories that differ from tradition. Children in countries of the former Soviet
bloc participate in activities to promote democratic citizenship, for example which
their families might find to be quite foreign or untenable.
The CRC States Parties are the primary agents mediating for the childs rights,
sometimes through the family, as discussed in the previous section, but mostly
through their direct involvement in the CRC and in domestic laws. Ratifying States
promise to recognize the rights of the child, promote, take all appropriate
measures to secure and protect the childs rights, to treat [the child] without
discrimination, to ensure the childs best interests, to develop, establish,
and preserve the childs identity (such as to provide a birth certificate). Ratifying
States promise a range of protections (such as to take appropriate legislative and
712 Daiute

administrative measures to ensure childrens rights). The State also promises to

respect, to take appropriate legislative and administrative measures, to promote
values (such as spirit of international cooperation), to teach preventive health
care guidance for parents, to prepare the child for responsible life, to refrain
from recruiting and abusing the child, and to make principles and provisions of
the Convention widely known. State Parties are also afforded a wide range of
exceptions, such as the right to recruit young people to fight their wars even
before the age of maturity if necessary.

Limitations on Childrens Rights

Across the wide range of rights in the Convention, national values and laws
are sovereign and qualifying each right in some way. Most of the articles, in short,
allow States Parties to limit a childs right in conformity with the law and in the
interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public
health or morals or protection of the rights and freedoms of others (p. 15). The
childs right to his or her family, expressed as the right not to be separated from
the family, limits the primary buffer between the child and the State: Where such
separation results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the detention,
imprisonment, exile, deportation or death (including death arising from any cause
while the person is in the custody of the State) of one or both parents or the
child.
The CRC establishes childrens rights as universal but posits limits in terms
of their developmental capacities to act on their own behalf. Noticeably missing
in the Convention is representation of the child as a social being or social agent.
None of the articles highlights equal relationshipssuch as with peers, siblings, or
other social institutions where the child might have responsibilities or an effect on
others. The absence of any mention of social relational reasoning and interaction
skills underscores the underrepresentation of capacities and, more importantly,
underrepresentation of childrens social political participation. What then is the
meaning of self-determination? How does it differ from societal-determination?
How do these capacities develop? More critical questions could ask about whether
and how children apply perceptual and analytic skills (such as perspective-taking)
to local material and symbolic circumstances, such as those related to debates
about gender equity and religious practices.
In summary, extremes of both maturation and socialization theories are im-
plicit in the CRC. As noted in Articles 12 and 14 above, childrens rights, such as
those to freedom of expression and conscience are defined in terms of evolving
capacities and in accordance with age and maturity, thereby expressing a matu-
rational view of development. These same rights are also limited by the rights and
duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to provide direction
to the child and to determine the best interests of the child. These parental
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 713

roles suggest a socialization model of development, by implying that the childs

view would ultimately echo the parents view and, moreover that parents would
not limit their childrens rights according to the CRC. Assumptions about how
childrens capacities develop in relation to circumstances and injustices in their
daily lives remain unexamined. Although maturation and socialization views may
both assume that children eventually can reason critically about their own lives,
theory-based analyses of the development of childrens sociopolitical reasoning
seems crucial to the appropriate balancing of nurturance and self-determination
rights. If, for example, States and parents limit deliberation of precisely those
contentious issues in society where childrens rights may be most challenged, how
would children develop, express, and exercise these rights?

Negotiating Rights across the CRC System

In this section, I discuss how an analysis of dialogic relations across the CRC
activity-meaning system offers insights about the dilemmatic nature of defining
childrens rights. The analysis of the broader CRC system illustrates how State
Parties qualify their compliance with the treaty, thereby limiting childrens role in
expressing and developing their rights-based understandings.

Qualifying Rights

Childrens rights are qualified not only within the CRC document, as men-
tioned above, but also in the broader CRC system. As indicated in Table 1, the
childrens rights system allows for qualifying activity, as demonstrated in the for-
mal process of Declarations and Reservations. A few examples of Declarations
and Reservations illustrate CRC respect for cultural and religious Conventions,
such as Djiboutis declaration that it shall not consider itself bound by any pro-
visions or articles that are incompatible with its religion and traditional values
(U.N. Treaty Collection, 2001, p. 8) and the Holy Sees reservation that Family
planning and education services in Article 24.2, [will] mean only those methods of
family planning which it considers morally acceptable that is the natural methods
of family planning (U.N. Treaty Collection, 2001; p. 11). In more political vein,
Cuba asserts that under the domestic legislation in force, majority is not attained
at 18 years of age for purposes of the full exercise of civic rights (p. 7). Because
declarations and reservations clarify or claim exemptions to specific CRC articles,
they are involved in an ongoing negotiation of the Treaty.
An analysis of the nature of declarations and reservations offered insights
about how State Parties tailor the CRC to their circumstances and goals. This
analysis involved identifying the frequency of CRC Articles cited in qualifications
by State Parties in Declarations and Reservations to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
714 Daiute

Table 2. CRC Article Mentions in Declarations and Reservations to the Convention on the Rights of
the Child

Article Focal Issue of Article Frequency of Mention

21 Child protection in adoption 17

14 Child right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion 14
7 Child right to birth registration, name, & nationality 12
37 Child protection from punishment 12
38 Protection of children affected by armed conflict 12
2 Child protection from discrimination 8
9 Protection from separation from parents 8
40 Protection in the administration of juvenile justice 8
10 Child right to entering/leaving country for family unification 7
13 Child right to freedom of expression 7
15 Child right to freely associate & peaceful assembly 7
16 Child right to privacy 7

Note. There were no mentions for Articles 27, 33 36, 42 50, 52 54.
For the remainder of Articles, there were 6 1 mentions.

As shown in Table 2, several Articles emerge as particularly contentious by the

relative frequency of mentions, while others were mentioned infrequently or not at
all. The analysis revealed that the most frequently qualified Articles are Article 21
on child protection in adoption (17 State Party mentions), Article 14 on the childs
right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (14 State Party mentions),
Article 7 on the childs right to birth registration, name, and nationality (12 State
Party mentions), Article 37 on child protections against punishment (12 mentions),
and Article 38 related to treatment and participation in armed conflict, in particular
assurances to not be recruited before the age of 15 (12 mentions). While those 12
Articles received the majority of mentions, another 17 articles received between
1 and 6 mentions, and 25 Articles were not mentioned at all. Another way to
summarize these data is that 5 Articles were cited in 46% of the State Party
declarations and reservations, while the remaining 44% were spread across 11
Articles.
Interestingly, 10 of the 12 Articles mentioned most frequently are focused on
rights emphasizing childrens self-determination. For example, childrens rights
to freedom of thought (Article 14), freedom of expression (Article 13), right
to freely associate (Article 14), and right to privacy (Article 16) are explicitly
related to self-determination. Others, in contrast, are more implicitly related to
self-determination, such as Article 37 that claims protection from punishment
and Article10 that claims the childs right to enter/leave the country for family
unification. While these are based in part on nurturance principles, qualifying
childrens rights to protection from punishment could also be qualifying their
right to speak out against laws or practices they find unjust. Because relatively
few articles overall focus on childrens self-determination (approximately 25% as
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 715

cited above), it is important to note that qualifications focus disproportionately on

those self-determination rights. Articles that no State Party questioned had to do
with protecting children against various kinds of abuse and exploitation (sexual
abuse, exposure to substance abuse, abduction, and other exploitation), the State
Party implementation and monitoring of CRC procedures, and language.
With this analysis extended beyond the CRC treaty to the Declarations and
Reservations, we observe, for example, how childrens rights occur within and are
limited by the rights of State Parties. We see, moreover, in the declarations that
childrens rights are qualified in terms of political and cultural priorities of the State
Party. The analysis, thus, revealed that ensuring childrens self-determination is
viewed as more problematic for State Parties than protecting children from certain
ills. In addition to noting this tension between childrens rights and State Party
rights, the analysis foregrounds the relative lack of an explanation for childrens
sociopolitical development and rights-based understandings, beliefs, and actions.
Based on the qualifying activity examined in the declarations and reserva-
tions, we can raise questions about the definition and possibility of childrens self-
determination rights. If childrens rights to freedom of thought, self-expression,
free association, etc. can be limited by State Party and family rights, what is the
implied explanation of childrens development of capacities related to these abil-
ities? How does such limiting of childrens rights exploit the lack of explicitness
in particular about the nature of childrens sociopolitical development and rights-
based understandings in the CRC system? Does the implicit maturational model
allow the rights of families and states to override the rights of the immature child?
Do assumptions about socialization compromise childrens rights by implying that
their views will inevitably mirror those of their elders?
There are several directions to pursue in addressing these questions. Embed-
ding childrens rights in nations rights is necessary for negotiating a childrens
rights treaty. Qualifications also allow for cultural diversity, but equating chil-
drens rights to cultural-political rights of their elders limits the possibility that
they would contest the status quo. If that is the case, we ask What is the nature
of childrens self-determination defined in the CRC system? What mechanisms
are there in the CRC system to address how childrens perspectives might differ
from those of their parents and national institutions?

Monitoring and Reporting

The next section further foregrounds the tensions between childrens rights
and nations rights inherent in the CRC activity-meaning system. While qualifying
activity privileges the State Party perspective, monitoring and reporting open
the field of debate to the international and local areas. Monitoring occurs by
the international organizations of the United Nations Security Council and the
U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child. State Parties and nongovernmental
organizations are involved in reporting to those international organizations, which
716 Daiute

creates an implicit monitoring by the nonstate actors. Table 1 lists a sequence of

monitoring and reporting documents by international, State, and nonstate actors
to illustrate the CRC activity-meaning system. In addition to gathering these
documents as illustrations of the broader CRC activity-meaning system, I analyzed
the dialogical nature of interactions across actors in the system.
The sequence of documents listed in Table 1 extends the CRC negotiation
process beyond the statement of the treaty (no. 1 on Table 1) and the privilege
of State Parties to qualify their ratifications (no. 2 on Table 1) to a process of
monitoring and reporting (United Nations Treaty Collection, 9 October, 2001).
This iterative sequence of interactions includes monitoring by the international
organizations, included here with the U.N. General Assembly Security Council
Agenda Item no. 63 noting violations of CRC articles by certain State Parties (no.
3 on Table 1), and the CRC Committee monitoring activity focused on Colombia,
which had been previously noted for violations (no. 4 and no. 5 on Table 1). Each
State-Party must periodically present reports on their efforts to ensure childrens
rights, 2 years after ratifying the CRC and then in 5- year intervals. They are
also required to respond to violations and concerns noted by the international
committees.
Interactions across this sequence of documents are quite explicit. For exam-
ple, the U.N. Security Council cited Colombia, along with several other countries,
for violations and concerns about allowing children to fight in that countrys in-
ternal conflict. In its 3rd periodic report, Colombia then acknowledged that The
most critical aspect of the Colombian reality today is the internal armed conflict
(Colombian Government, 2004). A subsequent CRC Committee monitoring docu-
ment referred to the issue of displaced children: The Committee takes note of the
State partys [Colombias] intention to increase resources to internally displaced
children, however expresses grave concern of the very high number of children
who continue to be displaced in Colombia, the 3rd largest number of displaced
persons in the world (www.unhcr.org).
The CRC Committee then directed Colombia to address a List of issues . . . in
connection with the consideration of the third periodic report of Colombia, stating
further that Under this section the State party is requested to submit in written
form additional and updated information, if possible, before 5 April 2006. The
State-Party report then replied to the list of issues raised, again acknowledged
that the most critical problem in Colombia today is the internal armed conflict,
and offered assurances that it has implemented programs relating to children that
have been developed by responsible institutions.
Another voice in this CRC system is the civil society sector, represented by
The NGO Group of nongovernmental organizations. The NGO Group Liason Unit
supports participation of the NGOs, particularly national coalitions, in the re-
porting process to the Committee on the Rights of the Child . . . to ensure the
implementation of the Convention, especially through their production of
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 717

Alternative Reports (http://www.crin.org/NGOGroupforCRC/index.asp). An ex-

ample of such a report is the Alternative report to the report of the government
of Colombia on the situation of rights of the child in Colombia (2005). This
report acknowledges that the Colombian government had assumed certain respon-
sibilities for childrens rights, yet this document also criticizes the governments
lack of effectiveness in improving the situation of Colombian children, especially
children of the poor, whom the report states as an overwhelming majority of the
population.
The Alternative Report quotes the government, for example, as proposing to
incorporate in the military program of peasant soldiers approximately 100,000
youth (Alternative Report, p. 13). Also taken up in this report is the governments
negotiation and amnesty of paramilitary groups who prey upon children: Amongst
the main concerns [are] that the negotiations have denied the root causes of serious
human rights abuses committed by the paramilitaries; . . . that negotiations have
been carried out in spite of [the fact that] these groups continue to commit crimes;
that there have not been taken the necessary measures to dismantle and disarticulate
their ties with members of the official armed forces or to guarantee the rights of
victims and the society to truth (Alternative Report, p. 13). Such claims of the
government failure to protect youth from participation in armed conflict include
quotes by children: I was promised a job and that they were going to pay me one
million [Colombian pesos] for each guerilla leader that I killed. I am expert in
explosives and then I can work planning mines and other explosives (Alternative
Report, p. 79). Like the reports by the Colombian government, such reports are
directed explicitly to the Committee of the CRC, but there is also implicit dialogue
among the actors within Colombia.
As we have seen, monitoring and reporting activities expand the CRC activity-
meaning system by increasing the dialogue among local participants and by in-
cluding childrens perspectives, especially by introducing Alternative Reports,
which check state power and often include children directly in the CRC process.
Nevertheless, across the CRC systems, the child continues to be represented as the
object of childrens rights discourse, rather than as an agent in the process of in-
terpreting rights and violations of rights. The analysis above reveals the dilemma
of rights system that protects children by embedding them as family and state
possessions rather than as collectively empowered agents in society. Although
there may be no obvious way out of the dilemma within the state of the art of
international diplomacy at the present time, we can advance inquiry about chil-
drens rights by continuing to pose questions about how children develop and how
they understand precisely those rights-based issues their governments and families
challenge. Toward this end, it behooves us to find ways to include young peoples
perspectives more explicitly and systematically in research on the CRC system.
Research inspired by sociocultural theory positing that childrens develop-
ment interacts with the specific circumstances of their every day lives, such as
718 Daiute

conflicts and injustices they face, offers insights about the context-dependent na-
ture of childrens reasoning about sociopolitical issues relevant to rights-based
discourse. Several examples follow to illustrate how eliciting childrens perspec-
tives about contentious sociopolitical issues belie assumptions about maturation
and socialization. These examples suggest the need for increasingly systematic
research to assess whether childrens experiences with rights violations lead to
understandings that occur earlier than maturational theories would posit and how
those experiences might lead to understandings that differ from those of their
elders.

Integrating Childrens Perspectives in the CRC Activity-Meaning System

Because childrens rights are embedded in the rights of nations, primarily in

the guise of protection of the evolving capacities of the gradually maturing child,
research can make a major contribution by considering the sociopolitical nature of
development. Given the theoretical and practical ambiguity of the CRC activity-
meaning system in establishing the basis of childrens rights-based reasoning, we
draw on research that elicits childrens understandings about conflict and diversity,
two rights-related issues that State Parties qualify.
To integrate young peoples explicit participation in the broader CRC system,
it is important that their voices come in as more than anecdotal quotes. Systematic
research with young people reflecting on issues where their rights have been
compromised suggests that they reason in complex ways at relatively younger
ages than we would expect from a maturational or socialization perspective. Three
studies eliciting childrens perspectives in relation to local crises suggest the
complexity of childrens reasoning about issues related to rights and the fact that
this reasoning does not necessarily echo that of the elders entrusted to advocate
on their behalf.
In her recent ethnographic study with children involved in armed conflict, Sta.
Maria (2006) described a situation in the Philippines where children as young as
11 are recruited into civil struggles in spite of the States ratification of the CRC
and laws against recruiting minors. Explaining the pathways of Filipino chil-
drens participation in armed conflict, Sta. Maria explains that armed insurgency
groups such as the New Peoples Army (NPA) and the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) provide orphaned and impoverished children with nurturance and a
community in exchange for their participation in conflict-related tasks.
Based on interviews with children in the Philippines, Sta. Maria reports that
childrens experiences with violence become the basis for their development.
Sandra, for example, explained that she had joined the NPA to escape poverty
and an abusive family situation as a child. In addition to finding protection and
opportunity in the NPA activities, Sandra also learned that when she left home, her
stepfather stopped beating her mother. Expressing her problem-solving further,
Sandra explained, If I have the chance, I want to go to college and study something
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 719

related to what I did as a medic in the NPAI was good at what I did, I even used
to operate on those who were shot . . . Mama asked me why I wanted to stay
with the NPA. I told her that I wanted to experience life as an NPA . . . Back
then, I wasnt afraid of dying . . . At least I had a chance to tell my Mama the
reasons why I was going. It was the first time I told her about how I felt,
(Sta. Maria, 2006, p. 35). Examining such thinking to identify how young people
like Sandra define nurturance and self-determination rights in relation to specific
challenges and opportunities in their environments seems a productive step toward
establishing context-sensitive methods and definitions of childrens rights-based
reasoning.
Another study asked young people to reflect on their experiences and needs at
the end of the 1990s war in the Balkans. In that context, where the state and adult
generation had been silencing talk of war to protect children from the horrors
they had experienced, children spoke clearly about their rights to learn about
their history, including the recent wars. Based on interviews with children and
their parents in two areas of the Balkans, researchers report that both Serb and
Croatian children said they wanted to know more about the war and explained why
this knowledge is important (Freedman & Abazovic, 2006). The tension between
parents view of protection and the childrens need for participation shouts out
in these typically conflicting quotes: We should learn about the causes of the
war and how disputes should be resolved in order to avoid wars. . . . I believe we
should talk about it, while the following is typical of the parents interviewed:
We have been trying not to burden them [the children]. We dont talk about
politics at home so we are trying to protect them as much as we can. Children
are, moreover, aware of the suppression, as one boy said, They avoid the subject
at home (Freedman & Abazovic, 2006, p. 23). The issue in this situation is the
right to knowledge, which becomes salient in the Balkans because of the ongoing
tensions that children observe daily in spite of the silence denying those tensions.
Childrens thirst for a particular kind of knowledge thus emerges in a specific
contentious context.
In the United States, there is also evidence that young people exposed to con-
flict in urban contexts reason in critical ways. In one study, for example, although
the curriculum and teachers in a violence prevention program emphasized resolv-
ing conflicts by employing a range of interpersonal communication strategies,
7- through 10-year-old children identifying with African-American, Latino, and
immigrant backgrounds noticed that discriminatory practices can make conflict
resolution difficult if not impossible. These 7- to 9-year-old children, like the chil-
dren in the Balkans, spontaneously focused on tensions reflecting broader issues
in the society, perhaps those discussed in the privacy of their homes or among
trusted peers. The following quote, for example, is the beginning of a longer con-
versation by two children who were recent immigrants to the U.S.: What a bad
country America is . . . It has a lot of pollution. I mean look at the manners they
have . . . the bad language . . . and you cant even get used to them (Daiute, Stern,
720 Daiute

& Lelutiu-Weinberger, 2003, p. 97). Children who feel marginalized in a society

may become particularly attuned to such critical details and the fact that it is okay
to express such critique among peers but not in larger class discussions, one among
many instances of higher order thinking that occurred in this study (Daiute et al.,
2003). In the absence of such opportunities to discuss contentious issues, it may
seem that children are unable to reflect on them or must be protected from the
realities of social marginalization.
The significance of these brief accounts is that they suggest the promise of
research on childrens rights-based understandings in the context of contentious
issues in their every day lives. As they notice and respond to the issues in their
environments, childrens sociocognitive capacities may emerge differently, sug-
gesting the need for context-sensitive research and practice. Sandra, for example,
linked past and future action when pressured to explain her involvement in the
guerilla movement; the young Balkans expressed discomfort about something so-
ciety was trying to protect them from; and the young children in the United States
distanced themselves from the powerful mainstream context when they had the
protection of like-minded peer support. Across these examples, we hear children
using higher order thinking skills, such as Sandras transformation of a debate
with her mother about participation in the NPA into a statement of self-discovery
and potential pathway to a productive future and the Balkan childrens apparent
knowledge of issues that their parents had tried to hide from them.
Future research could usefully explore in more detail whether and how such
context-sensitive discourse has an impact on childrens rights-based reasoning
and action. This approach would build on theory that is specific in terms of the
interdependence between individual and societal development, thereby extending
beyond maturational and socialization models implicit in the CRC system.
This approach is consistent with other scholars examination of the influence
of context on childrens rights-based understandings (Horn, this issue; Peterson-
Badali & Ruck, this issue; Sherrod, this issue). Working from theory positing
that rights-based reasoning develops in relation to childrens experiences, rather
than any absolute age-based capacities, recent research has identified differences
in childrens thinking about rights, citizenship, and sociomoral issues across po-
sitions in society. Experiences of maltreatment, ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
and their local sociopolitical ideologies affect how they think about the nature
and assignment of rights (Peterson-Badali & Ruck, this issue; Sherrod, this is-
sue; Turiel, 2002). Research has also begun to consider interactions of childrens
thinking about relationships between rights, civic responsibilities (such as acting
on behalf of others, including or excluding others, etc.) as functions of childrens
positions in society (Horn, this issue; Sherrod, this issue). Consistent with this
context-sensitive research, a sociocultural activity approach suggests the value of
examining childrens rights-based reasoning in relation to the specific issues that
are contentious in the society, like those qualified across the CRC activity-meaning
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 721

system and located in monitoring and reporting documents typically at the margins
of the system.
Given the sociocultural hypothesis that it is specific situations where critical
thinking emerges, such ongoing research would also require methods that allow
children to express their rights-based understandings in a range of ways over con-
texts and time. For this reason, future research could beneficially elicit narratives
from children living in situations where their self-determination rights, in partic-
ular, might be in conflict with those of the state and other institutions. As we saw
in the analysis above, moreover, issues of conflict and intergroup relations tend to
be those that State Parties qualified and exempted from their agreement to comply
with the CRC. These qualified issues are, thus, contentious, and, I would argue,
those issues that are broadly discussed in the society or exposed by uncomfortable
silences. From the perspective that childrens development is interdependent with
the activities in their society, we could expect that conflicts and silences would be
highly salient to children in such contexts.

Implications

In summary, this analysis of the representations of the major actors in the CRC
activity-meaning system reveals conceptual issues and power relations that limit
childrens rights. Although the relatively reduced vision of the child addresses
the political problem of acquiring ratifications in the short run, the emphasis on
nurturance rights at the expense of participation rights limits the potential value of
the CRC. By analyzing child development as a social cultural political process,
rather than as a maturational or socialization processes, we may be better able to
identify challenges and define human development in relation to circumstances
where children are growing up, including the complex situations that challenge
their rights. Consistent with the analysis presented here, I suggest that the issues
that the State Party wants to control further in terms of childrens rights are
contentious ones in the society, such as girls education or birth control. Based
on previous research on interactions among children and youth (Daiute et al.,
2003; Giroux, 2001), I posit that it is precisely such contentious issues that are
being discussed privately if not publicly among young people. By broadening the
unit of analysis to the CRC activity-meaning system, we see how the discourse
of childrens rights can address contentious issues within state parties and from
the perspective of young people. These issues of salience in everyday discourse
would, thus, be ones provoking childrens critical reflection and perhaps the basis
for expression about matters that affect them, those matters promised and limited
in the broader CRC system. I point out these tensions to suggest a theoretical basis
and direction for future research, interventions, and ongoing policy-related inquiry.
In particular, identifying these tensions suggests the need for research focusing on
how children understand the issues that are contentious in a society, such as taboos
722 Daiute

against discussions or activities, like those related to war, and the transformation
of cultural practices related to social, political, or economic change.
Koshy, a human rights scholar, makes another point we can apply to devel-
opmental theory: while the very meaning of utopia seems to impel us toward an
exhaustive possibility, an absolute manifestation, or an end-point, . . .We are only
always getting there and the horizon keeps moving as we proceed (1999, p. 27).
The many threats to claims for childrens rights in the CRC suggest we are far from
utopia. If our research could account for detours that occur when children struggle
with a range of less-than-ideal circumstances, we may be able to create models
that provide new insights about young peoples thinking and agency within these
situations of social ills that ensnare them.

References

Alternative Report to the Report of the Government of Reporting-monitoring Colombia on the Situation
of the Rights of the Child. (www.crin.org)
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of speech genres. In C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds.), Speech
genres and other late essays (Trans. Vern W. McGee, pp. 60 102) Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Bamberg, M. (2006). Stories: Big or small. Why do we care? Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 139 147.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. (1998). The ecology of developmental processes. In W. Damon
(Gen. Ed) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of
human development (Vol. 1, pp. 993 1028). New York: Wiley. Childrens Rights International
Network. (www.crin.org).
Burton, L., Obeidallah, D., & Allison, K. (1996). Ethnographic insights on social context and ado-
lescent development. In R. Jessor, A. Colby, & R. Schweder (Eds.), Ethnography and human
development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Colombian Government. (2004). Third report of the Colombian State before the Committee of the
Rights of the Child. Bogota. (www.icbf.gov.co).
CRC, U.N. General Assembly. (1989). Adoption of a convention on the rights of the child. New York:
United Nations.
Dahbour, O. (2003). Human rights and human needs. Paper presented at the 2nd International Con-
ference of Human Rights, Mofid University, Iran.
Daiute, C. (2006). The problem of society in youth conflict. In C. Daiute, Z. Beykont, C. Higson-Smith,
& L. Nucci (Eds.), International perspectives on youth conflict and development (pp. 3 20).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Daiute, C., Stern, R., & Lelutiu-Weinberger, C. (2003). Negotiating violence prevention. Journal of
Social Issues, 59, 83 101.
Damon, W., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of child psychology, volume 1, theoretical
models of human development (6th ed). New York: Wiley.
Engestrom, Y., & Miettinen, R. (1999). Introduction. In Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen, & R-L. Punamaki,
R-L. (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 1 18). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Freedman, S. W., & Abazovic, D. (2006). Growing up during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. In C.
Daiute, Z. Beykont, C. Higson-Smith, & L. Nucci (Eds.), International perspectives on youth
conflict and development (pp. 57 72). New York: Oxford University Press.
Giroux, H. A. (2001). Theory and resistance: Towards a pedagogy for the opposition. Westport, CT:
Bergin & Garvey.
Harre, R., & Van Langenhove, L. (1999). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers
Hart, R. A. (1999). Childrens participation: The theory and practice of including young citizens in
community development and environmental care. New York: UNICEF.
The Rights of Children, the Rights of Nations 723

Hart, S. N. (1982). The history of childrens psychological rights. Viewpoints in Teaching and Learning,
58, 1 15.
Hart, S. N. (1991). From property to person status: Historical perspectives on childrens rights. Amer-
ican Psychologist, 46, 53 59.
Koshy, S. (1999). From cold war to trade war: Neocolonialism & human rights. Social Text, 58(1),
1 32.
Kuper, J. (1997). Reservations, declarations, and objections to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of
the Child. In J. P. Gardner (Ed.), Human rights as general norms and a states rights to opt
out: Reservations and objections to human rights conventions (pp. 104 113). London, UK:
The British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Landsdown, G. (2005). The evolving capacities of the child. Florence, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti
Research Center.
Leontev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Murphy-Berman, V., & Weisz, V. (1996). U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: Current
challenges. American Psychologist, 51, 1231 1233.
Piaget, J. (1968). Six psychological studies. New York: W.W. Norton.
Ruck, M. D., Abramovitch, R., & Keating, D. P. (1998). Childrens and adolescents understanding of
rights: Balancing nurturance and self-determination. Child Development, 64(2), 404 417.
Sta. Maria, M. A. (2006). Paths to Filipino youth involvement in violent conflict. In C. Daiute, Z.
Beykont, C. Higson-Smith, & L. Nucci (Eds.), International perspectives on youth conflict and
development (pp. 29 42). New York: Oxford University Press.
Turiel, E. (2002). The culture of morality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
United Nations Treaty Collection (9 October, 2001). Declarations and Reservations. From
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/treaty15/_asp.htm.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. (1991). Voices in the mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilcox, B. L., & Naimark, H. (1991). The rights of the child: Progress toward human dignity. American
Psychologist, 46, 1 19.

COLETTE DAIUTE is Professor of Psychology at the Graduate Center, City

University of New York. Dr. Daiute does research on social development as an
interactive process of individuals and societies. Toward this end, she is doing sev-
eral case studies to consider diversity within and among young people growing up
in the context of political crises and transitions across countries of the former Yu-
goslavia and in Colombia South America, including migrants to the United States
from both regions. Colette Daiutes recent publications include International per-
spectives on youth conflict and development (Oxford University Press, 2006),
Narrative analysis: Studying the development of individuals in society (Sage Pub-
lications, 2004), and Critical narrating by adolescents in troubled times (In K.
McLean & M. Pasupathi, Eds., Narrative development in adolescence. New York:
Springer) and Young people and armed conflict (A. Furlong, Ed., Handbook of
youth and young adulthood. UK: Routledge).