Multigenerational Citizenship: The Importance of Recognizing Children as National and International Citizens

This article discusses the author’s concept of multigenerational citizenship, arguing that for citizenship to be relevant for children, there needs to be a more flexible and relational approach to citizenship. Tom Paine’s theories are expanded upon, by examining the increasing acceptance, by both international and regional fora in both political and human rights, of a child’s autonomy in bringing complaints to a human rights body. The article examines the recent developments in the move toward establishing a complaints mechanism under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and argues that this is an important element of international child citizenship. The article also examines the progress made in national courts toward child citizenship, which has helped to change the international consensus on providing an international remedy for breaches of child citizenship rights. The article compares the growing acceptance of children as international citizens by the European Court of Human Rights and under the specially designed African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’s complaints mechanism. Because of all these developments, the author rejects the assumption that regeneration is needed to reenergize the international social movement for children as citizens, arguing that such pessimism is an oversimplification of both the achievements and failures of the CRC.