Abstract

This chapter focuses on children and their human rights from a critical but constructive point of view. It examines the guiding principles behind the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) from a critical criminological perspective. The main goal of the chapter is to discuss the challenges to the implementation of the UNCRC 20 years after its adoption. Critical criminologists stand to make an important contribution to understanding the underlying factors contributing to considerable discrepancies between the law in theory and its application in practice.