Rights of the Child

Page 1 of 6

Filter category

Feature post image

Forced Sterilisation before the Inter-American Court: Between Progress and Silence in Ramos Durand v. Peru

April 1, 2026

On 5 March, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR) notified its long-awaited judgment in Celia Edith Ramos Durand v. Peru. The case concerns the forced sterilisation of Celia Edith Ramos Durand and stands for thousands of predominantly Indigenous women who were sterilised under coercive conditions in Peru in the late 1990s. It is only the second judgment in which the Court addressed forced sterilisation, following I.V. v. Bolivia. The judgment has been widely welcomed as an important step toward justice in a challenging domestic context. It also contains notable ‘firsts’, including the majority’s decision to analyse the facts under the right to health and their characterisation as reproductive violence. At the same time, it raises important concerns. Most notably, the Court declined to qualify the acts as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and refrained from recognising the forced sterilisations as crimes against humanity – a qualification it has made in previous judgments in relation to other underlying acts.

Read more

A Fourth Optional Protocol to the CRC to Strengthen the Right to Education in International Law?

December 17, 2025

Introduction The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1989, is the most widely ratified treaty within the UN human rights system. Comprising 54 articles, the CRC covers the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children, recognising them as individual rights holders. Between…

Read more

Placing future generations at the heart of Inter-American human rights law?

July 21, 2025

A key aspect of the rich and long-awaited Inter-American Court of Advisory Human Rights Advisory Opinion 32/25 on Climate Emergency and Human Rights (AO-32) is the treatment of future generations (FG) with regard to Inter-American regional human rights protections. (A general discussion of the decision is here). The position of FG and their rights…

Read more

The Child Is Not Dead: Ingrid Jonker’s Poem and the Atrocity Crime Without a Name

April 9, 2025

The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville nor at the police station at Philippi where he lies with a bullet through his brain … the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings… The reprise of South African place names at…

Read more

Extraction and Indigenous Culture: UN Bodies’ Views on the Indigenous Right to Culture, the Indigenous Right to Land, and Resource Extraction

March 11, 2025

In October 2024, the Committees on the Rights of the Child (CCRC) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) published their Views in three communications against Finland. Both Committees concluded that the country had violated the rights of individuals in the Kova-Labba Siida (a Sámi community) by granting a…

Read more