Why has the EU’s international promotion of the rights of the child become so important?

Ian Manners analyses 10 years of the EU's steps in promoting the children's rights

How and why has the international promotion of the rights of the child (RoC) has risen so quickly up the agenda of the EU and the social dimension of globalisation over the last ten years? The recently published chapter by DIIS Senior Researcher, Ian Manners, looks at the historical development, contemporary examples, and current strategy on the EU’s promotion of the rights of the child. The chapter is part of an ongoing international research project focusing on the EU and the social dimension of globalisation, and is the result of a debate and open public forum involving discussion between civil society, NGOs, policy-makers, academics and students on the EU’s external social policies. The open forum and debate took place in Ghent (Belgium)on 22 November 2007, as part of a series of events funded by the European Commission Jean Monnet programme. Itwas organised in cooperation with Mo*Magazine. The chapter is in one of the products of this international collaboration; Jan Orbie and Lisa Tortell (eds.) The European Union and the Social Dimension of Globalization: how the EU influences the world (London: Routledge, 2008).

The chapter argues that the way forward for the EU in promoting the RoC involves the Action Plan on Children in External Relations which promotes, 2008 to 2013, a set of tasks and actions, as well as attempting to copy the perceived mainstreaming of gender through a children’s rights toolkit. There are questions remaining over whether the EU and its member states are willing to promote the RoC beyond 2008 against considerable resistance, both within and without the Union. However, it can be tentatively argued that the EU is now taking steps to promote normative principles in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; it seems committed to promoting normative actions by developing a more holistic approach; but it remains to be seen, for example against the achieve­ment of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, whether it has a normative impact in its international promotion of the rights of the child.

The international research project on the EU and the social dimension of globalization involves political scientists, legal scholars and economists and is led by Jan Orbie (Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University), Lisa Tortell (DINÃMIA, Lisbon), Ian Manners (EU Unit - Danish Institute for International Studies), Tonia Novitz (School of Law - University of Bristol), and Jacqui True (Europe Institute - University of Auckland) [weblink: http://www.psw.ugent.be/EUstudies/page.aspx?id=33].



LINKS:
Book: Jan Orbie and Lisa Tortell (eds.) The European Union and the Social Dimension of Globalization: how the EU influences the world (London: Routledge, 2008)
International research project webpage
Public Seminar webpage
Author: Ian Manners