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Adopting a Rights Lens to Children’s Training in Football Academies
Full text linkSporting issues are increasingly the subject of legal intervention in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, but the effect of commercial pressures on young football players remains largely unaddressed. Underpinned by an empirical assessment of the English Premier League’s self-regulation on youth development matters, this article argues in favour of the need to adopt a rights-based approach to children’s involvement with professional football academies. Based on data gathered through almost 80 semi-structured interviews across England, the analysis concentrates on stakeholders’ awareness of children’s rights and how they influence football academies. The article concludes with policy recommendations to ameliorate the issues identified.
Keywords: children; football; children’s rights; sports; Premier League
Child Q, School Searches and Children’s Rights
Full text linkThe troubling case of “Child Q”, regarding a black girl who was strip-searched at her school while on her period in 2020, highlighted the discriminatory and often brutal treatment experienced by young people at the hands of the police. This commentary considers the response to the incident, focusing on the local authority’s use of a children’s rights framework to assess the actions of both police and schoolteachers. It compares the scrutiny of police powers to stop and search minors in public with the lack of focus on powers to search pupils in schools, noting the potential for disproportionality and the need for systematic data collection. It draws attention away from the focus on individual police failures and towards systematic problems with disciplining school pupils, focusing on suspicions about drug use—and the smell of cannabis specifically—as a potential source of inequitable outcomes.
Keywords: drugs; racism; education; policing; exclusions
Poetry for Rights! Intergenerational Co-creation for Child Rights Scholarship
Full text linkThis article presents the work of a group of child rights activists including children, young people and a supporting adult, who creatively convey their thoughts and feelings about the most pressing contemporary issues in the field of children’s rights and explore implications for intergenerational co-authorship in the child rights space. The children and young people decided to use poetry as a form of communication to express themselves about the challenges and aspirations of being child rights activists in an era of polycrisis, and they then worked together to analyse the poems, identifying cross-cutting themes around mental health, navigating power relationships and demands for a more inclusive, equitable future. The text of the article contains links to online video recordings of the authors performing their poetry, inviting readers to immerse themselves in a multi-sensory experience of child-led, child rights scholarship. Accordingly, the article presents an exploration of imaginative, interactive and intergenerational scholarship on children’s rights and suggests that co-creation with children may provide a way of upholding children’s rights while making space for new epistemologies that challenge Eurocentric, adultist norms of knowledge production in the child rights space.
Keywords: child rights; child participation; arts-based methods
Equity in Tax—All Change after 1873?
Full text linkUntil the late 19th century, equity and common law courts were separate. Tax courts emerged from equity, and today equitable principles and maxims govern the tax legislation, as well as His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs guidance and the tribunals. Even though the equity and common law courts “fused” in 1873, there has only ever been one law: common law tempered by equity. Only the courts, remedies and procedures were different prior to 1873 (though a unified Court of Exchequer with equity and common law jurisdiction existed before 1841). The law was already a single entity by the late 19th century. There was no fusion of actual laws in 1873, only of courts and procedure. Equity already moderated tax law, with beneficial ownership being all that mattered for tax purposes then and today.
Keywords: equity; common law; fusion; tax; beneficial ownership; Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873
Criss-crossings of Psychological Practice in Adoption Processes: Preliminary Results of a Field Study in Argentina
Full text linkPsychologists have acquired an increasingly significant role in the field of child protection in Argentina. Particularly in regard to their participation in the adoption system, psychological reports and interventions have taken great prominence when an exceptional protection measure of family separation is decided or when the adoptability status of a child is under consideration, among other instances. The increasing incidence of intervention by psychologists makes it necessary to analyse the factors that infuse the practices conditioning professional criteria. From a mental health perspective, it is necessary for professionals in the area to be able to provide a reading of the subjective aspects at stake. Based on this, we reflect on the importance of articulating both the children’s rights field and the field of the individual subject involved in each case.
This article presents some results of PhD field research conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by analysing qualitative interviews and the retrieval of information from legal files collected from a Civil Court and from several institutions related to the adoption system. It examines various institutional and discursive criss-crossings that affect the work and the viewpoint of psychologists in this area of their activity.
Keywords: adoption; ethics; institutions; psychology; subjectivity
Born to be Authors: Children, Creativity and Copyright
Full text linkThis article analyses the role of the child as an author and creative individual, according to the paradigm of Maria Montessori, to expand the question of whether the law provides a sufficient and just safeguard to this category of copyright authors. Montessori’s exploration of the creative freedom of children shows how irresistibly strong and indomitable their creativity is in the early years. This article submits that the early years are a most significant phase when children, in their exercise of creative authorship, are able to express the utmost freedom and originality. Accordingly, a scholarship of copyright law “of” the child and, significantly, authorship “by” the child should be at the core of a just and balanced legal system that brings together the rights and safeguards embedded within international rules and the copyright framework.
Keywords: children; creativity; copyright; education; United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; Montessori; ingenuity; expression; originality; creative choices
Doing Rights, Making Citizens: The Practices of High School Student Governments
Full text linkHow does the right to education inform respect for citizenship rights, where school education becomes a site of contestation over democracy? Drawing on a review of all documents produced during international reviews of Taiwan’s implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and interviews with members of high-school student governments, in this article, we demonstrate how local educational systems negotiate to meet international child rights standards. We further argue that experiences of being involved in student governments and human rights review processes empower the students, informing them of a future where they feel relevant and responsible in networking and decision-making.
Keywords: civil and political rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; education reform; right to education; school government; Taiwan
International Surrogacy and Stateless Children: Article 7 UNCRC and the Harmful Effects of Statelessness
Full text linkThis article examines statelessness resulting from international surrogacy arrangements by exploring whether there is protection afforded under international law and the overall consequences of statelessness for surrogate-born children. The aim of this contribution is to shed light on the statelessness problem in view of recent developments in the field. In particular, for an updated and holistic approach to surrogacy and statelessness, this contribution advocates for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC) to be read in conjunction with the recently established Verona Principles. These Principles are specifically designed for international surrogacy, able to complement the existing UN protection, and it is argued that a combined reading of the UNCRC and the Verona Principles provides stronger protection of children’s rights. In addition, this contribution aspires to bridge the gap between legal and other consequences of statelessness, with the latter often overlooked in the context of surrogate-born children.
To explore the above, this article first addresses the phenomenon of statelessness for children born through international surrogacy via an examination of conflicting laws and international surrogacy cases. The article then discusses how this state of affairs infringes the rights of the surrogate-born children, and in particular the right to acquire a nationality (Article 7 UNCRC). It is also submitted that, for surrogacy, Article 7 UNCRC should be read in conjunction with the recently established Verona Principles for a more holistic protection. Finally, this article examines the harmful effects that result from the surrogate-born children’s statelessness, advocating for a more comprehensive approach that goes beyond the strictly legal consequences of statelessness.
Keywords: surrogacy; statelessness; UNCRC; nationality; citizenship; cross-border assisted reproduction
Symposium on Scientia Iuris: A Reply
Full text linkIn this reply, I express my gratitude to Amicus Curiae for hosting a symposium on my new book—Scientia Iuris: Knowledge and Experience in Legal Education and Practice from the Late Roman Republic to Artificial Intelligence (Springer, 2024)—as well as to the symposium’s guest authors for their insightful contributions. In so doing, I also engage with their comments on my analysis and argument.
Keywords: scientia iuris; knowledge; experience; legal education; legal practice