Theoretical Study Of Western Children's Rights

For more than half a century, some western scholars have studied and explored deeply around central theoretical issues on children's rights, and have formed a more mature theoretical system of children's rights. The theory of children's rights has enlightened the public to re-reflect the moral status of children, and has promoted people to think rationally with new vision and perspective to the treatment and reality of children, and has pushed implementation and application of children's rights concept in the field of institution and practice. However in China, the concept of children's rights is very short, and the theoretical study of children's rights is extremely scarce, and the practice of children's rights is very weak, so the legislation on the protection of children's rights stays only in form and is lack of the real understanding and the vigorous realization mechanism. In view of the current situation of Chinese theory and practice of children's rights laying behind, This dissertation aims at returning to the context of western theory of children's rights, examining the basic theories of western children's rights critically, studying the problems of the theory and practice of western children's rights in order to guide Chinese theory and practice of children's rights.This dissertation mainly researches and discusses some central theoretical issues on children's rights such as, what's the meaning of children and childhood, whether children have rights or not, whether children have the same rights with adults, what rights do children have, and how the state involves the relationship between parents and children. Through the discussion, this dissertation will attempt to examine deep problems critically in theory and practice of western children's rights, and reconsider the actual impact and possible meaning to China, and study how to constitute the legal framework which suits for Chinese conditions and dialogues to the world on account of Chinese cultural traditions and the current protection situation of children's rights. The aim is to give useful guidance to improving Chinese children's living environment, protecting children's interests and promoting development of children. The whole dissertation consists of eight parts, namely, Introduction, Western view of childhood, The theory of proving the rationality of children as right subjects, The debate between Protectionism and Libertarianism on the theory of children's rights, The theory of the system and content of children's rights, The theory of state intervention in the parent-child relationship, The actual impact and possible meaning to China by western children's rights and Conclusion.Chapter 1 is the introduction of the dissertation, which concludes the selection and significance of the subject, the previous studies and the approach of the discussion and the structure of this dissertation.Chapter 2 observes the western view of childhood around the question of what's the meaning of children and childhood. Because the different understanding of childhood will determine different attitude and treatment to children and different understanding to children's rights in different ages, so to discuss western children's rights starting from the western view of childhood. This chapter explores the history of concept of western childhood, and the theoretical basis, major viewpoints and main differences of social constructivism theory of childhood view, and the influence which social constructivism theory of childhood view exerts on the theory of children's rights.Chapter 3 discusses the theory of proving the legitimacy of children as subjects of right around the question as whether children have rights or not. This only to establish the eligibility of children as subjects of rights and can children be given the discourse of rights, can children be said that have rights, and the theoretical system of children's rights can be built. Therefore, the problem of legitimacy of children as subjects of rights is the fundamental issue and logical starting point to the theory of children's rights. This chapter examines the generating history of the concept of children as subjects of rights firstly, then examines the justification to which children can be given rights on human rights theory and logic problems and difficulties which exist on the justification, and finally examine the justification to which children can be given rights on rights theory. To explore the different paths and difficulties on which different scholars prove the legitimacy of children as subjects of rights with two theory resources of choice theory and interest theory.Chapter 4 describes the debate between Protectionism and Libertarianism on the theory of children's rights around the question as whether children have the same rights with adults, and the different approaches which the scholars attempt to reconcile the controversies between the two schools. Protectionism andLibertarianism observed the phenomenon of abuse and exploitation to children long time in human history and they sincerely concerned about the welfare and interests of children, but there are huge controversies in the ways which the two schools promote children's development. This chapter first examines the controversial origin between Protectionism and Libertarianism, and then explains the theoretical foundations and basic viewpoints of the two schools. Next it describes the drastic disputes around age, ability and rights in detail. Last it shows the efforts that some scholars have to reconcile the disputes between the two schools. That is say, they attempt to build the theoretical framework which can be compatible with three claims: that children deserve the same moral consideration, that children can nevertheless be treated differently from adults, and that parents have limited authority to direct their upbringing in order to protect children's interests and promote children's development in degree.Chapter 5 discusses the theory of the system and content of children's rights around the questions as what rights do children have and what is the nature of these rights. The debate between Protectionism and Libertarianism lays a protection and autonomy dichotomous foundation, but many scholars aren't satisfied with this simple and rough analysis framework, and they seek more complex and sophisticated analysis framework to build the system of children's rights. This chapter's examination is based on the basic classification of the system of children's rights. In order to highlight the peculiarity, multiplicity and hierarchy of children's rights, the contents of children's rights are examined from four aspects: involving the basic interests of children, involving the protected interests of children, involving the development interests of children and involving the autonomy interests of children. This account is expected to show the system of children'rights clearly, roundly and entirely.Chapter 6 accomplishes to understand and describe children's rights in specificrights and obligations relationship around the legitimacy of state intervention in the parent-child relationship. This chapter observes the basic premise, main ideas and intervention principle of laissez-faire non-intervention and state intervention theory around whether the state should intervene the relationship between parents and children and to what extent the state intervention. Then it examines the valuable theory problems which the two controversial theories open out, such as the state's role, the limitation of state intervention, the means of state intervention and the safeguards of state intervention. These problems have very important inspirational function to understand the theories of state intervention in the relationship between parents and children and children's rights deeply.Chapter 7 mainly assesses the actual impact and draws possible meaning to China by the western children's rights. The western children's rights theory and Convention on the Rights of the Child produce enormous influence to children's rights protection practice in China, but this effect is first and foremost legislative, and the influence on children's rights ideas and protection practice of children's rights is still quite limited. In view of this situation, this chapter proposes two basic tasks to Chinese research on children's rights: One is to examine the existing contradictions and conflicts between children's rights ideas and the Chinese traditional culture, and discuss the main obstacles and possible approaches which western children's rights theory will develop in China. The other is to investigate the limitations in western children's rights theory itself, and evaluate the limit influence on Chinese children's rights protection practice.Chapter 8 is the conclusion of the dissertation, which explains briefly the theory value of children's rights, the problems in the paper and the research suppositions in the future.