Public Policies and Child Rights: Entering the Third Decade of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

After 20 years of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), it is increasingly clear that states bear the responsibility to promote, guarantee, respect, and fulfill the realization of children’s rights by all members of the national and international communities. An initial emphasis on legal reforms to adapt national law to the CRC—absolutely necessary but not sufficient—needs to give space to changes in other important areas of public action: economic policy and financing; social policy and administration; and public participation, including that of children. Enforcement and justiciability of rights need to be addressed today to face questions about public policy, systems, and institutions in the long term. The evolution of social policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, from neoliberal policies to systems of social protection, illustrates that only a comprehensive and equity-based view of social and economic policy, underpinned by the four principles of children’s rights (nondiscrimination, best interests of the child, survival and development, and the right to be heard), will satisfy the requirements for implementation of the CRC.