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Authors of their own lives? Children, Contracts, their Responsibilities, Rights and Citizenship

Authors of their own lives? Children, Contracts, their Responsibilities, Rights and Citizenship This article explores contract theory and suggests that a focus on contracts provides an understanding of what it is to be human and the concomitant rights that spring from this. Thus despite children being a ‘special case’ and requiring higher levels of protection and intervention than adults, this always remains a gift that does not have the clarity or effectiveness that contracts provide. While retaining a constant critical distance attention to children’s ‘ability’ to write contracts illustrates in a clear way the evolving capacities of the child and the graduated way in which children are expected to gain responsibilities. This more complex and contested formulation of rights tends to be embedded in specific case laws at a local level, in direct contrast to the more abstract forms of rights that may present all children as vulnerable and lacking. Though the prism of contracts, a perspective to wider economic inequalities is enabled in a manner that may give us a different approach to issues such as consumerism. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The International Journal of Children's Rights Brill

Authors of their own lives? Children, Contracts, their Responsibilities, Rights and Citizenship

Cockburn, Tom
The International Journal of Children's Rights , Volume 21 (2): 372 – Jan 1, 2013
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References (22)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Articles
ISSN
0927-5568
eISSN
1571-8182
DOI
10.1163/15718182-55680010
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article explores contract theory and suggests that a focus on contracts provides an understanding of what it is to be human and the concomitant rights that spring from this. Thus despite children being a ‘special case’ and requiring higher levels of protection and intervention than adults, this always remains a gift that does not have the clarity or effectiveness that contracts provide. While retaining a constant critical distance attention to children’s ‘ability’ to write contracts illustrates in a clear way the evolving capacities of the child and the graduated way in which children are expected to gain responsibilities. This more complex and contested formulation of rights tends to be embedded in specific case laws at a local level, in direct contrast to the more abstract forms of rights that may present all children as vulnerable and lacking. Though the prism of contracts, a perspective to wider economic inequalities is enabled in a manner that may give us a different approach to issues such as consumerism.

Journal

The International Journal of Children's Rights – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2013

Keywords: children; contracts; consumption rights

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