Child Rights Impact Assessment
The UNCRC: Safeguarding the rights of children
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) aims to ensure optimal development, a happy childhood and a promising future for all children. This convention was signed by nearly every country in the world, including the Netherlands. This means that all our laws, regulations and policies – both in the European and the Caribbean Netherlands – must be designed to protect the rights of children, both now and in the future.
This guide offers practical advice on how to put children’s rights first when developing new laws, regulations and policies.
The UNCRC consists of 54 articles designed to ensure that all children have a happy childhood and can develop to their full potential. The following four articles, known as the ‘general principles’, form the backbone of the UNCRC:
Article 2 – No discrimination
All the rights outlined in the UNCRC apply equally to all children, with no exceptions. This article specifically prohibits treating certain children differently due to factors like their ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender.
Article 3 – Best interests of the child
The interests of children must come first in all decisions that affect them, including when developing and implementing new laws and policies.
Article 6 – Life, survival and development
Every child has an inherent right to life and to develop to their full potential. This means that children must be allowed to grow and develop in all aspects of their lives, both now and in the future. For this to happen, children need a safe, nurturing living environment. Governments must strive to provide the right conditions for all children to thrive
Article 12 – Respect for children’s views
Children have the right to express their opinions on issues and decisions that affect them. This means that children should be involved in decision-making processes and that their views should be taken seriously.
These four articles are all interconnected. Taken together, they emphasise the importance of prioritising children’s well-being, participation, and equality in all decision-making processes that affect them.
The Child Rights Impact Assessment: the UN Committee’s recommendations
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child monitors governments to make sure they follow the UNCRC. The Committee periodically makes recommendations to the Dutch government on how to improve children’s rights in the Netherlands. In the ‘Concluding Observations’ of 2022, the Committee recommended the development of a Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA)¹ for legislation and policy at all levels of government.
The Committee also publishes documents known as ‘General Comments’ that contain guidance on how to interpret and apply the various articles of the UNCRC.
Article 4 of the UNCRC states that governments must do everything within their power to protect children’s rights. General Comment 5 offers more in-depth guidance on how governments can achieve this aim. For example, it recommends using a CRIA to ensure that children’s best interests are always taken into account when developing new laws, regulations and policies.
General Comment 14 and General Comment 12 contain important guidance on the form and content of a CRIA. General Comment 14 explains how to clearly identify children’s best interests, as well as how to involve children in this process. General Comment 12 focuses more specifically on child participation and strategies for ensuring that children have a real say in important decisions, including the development of laws, regulations and policies.
General Comment 14 lists seven elements² that are essential for identifying and assessing the interests of children. This document emphasises the importance of considering children’s overall development and provides a framework for understanding children’s rights and how they are interconnected. The seven elements are connected to many of the rights listed in the UNCRC. The links between them are explicitly mentioned in General Comment 14 for several, though not all, of the rights.
Always start with a CRIA – at the earliest possible stage
All laws, regulations and policies in both the European and the Caribbean Netherlands must be designed with children’s rights in mind. Failure to do so can have unintended consequences for children’s lives and development, putting them at risk and worsening the situations of those who were already vulnerable.
Generally speaking, all laws, regulations and policies will require a Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA). This is especially true in domains that directly concern children, such as education, youth care and family law. A CRIA is also required for any laws, regulations or policies that are known to affect children indirectly.
This includes domains³ in which children could be affected through their parents, such as income, housing, healthcare, family relationships and the justice system. It can also include less obvious domains, such as spatial planning or the living environment. When drafting laws, regulations and policies, the potential impact on children must be considered from the very beginning and must remain a priority throughout the process. By conducting a CRIA at the earliest stage possible, we can safeguard children’s rights and ensure they are not undermined by future laws, regulations or policies.
If the Preliminary Check indicates that your proposal will not affect children’s rights, you do not need to conduct a CRIA. However, if your proposal does have the potential to affect children’s rights, you must follow the entire four-step process for conducting a CRIA.