Convention on the Rights of the Child

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. It was created by the United Nations, and came into force in September 1990. The Convention has now been ratified by 193 countries.

The groundwork for the Convention on the Rights of the Child was laid in 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration states that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." As the world came to accept the idea that every person is guaranteed certain basic human rights, some began to see the need for a separate document recognizing the distinct nature of children. Several Declarations on children's rights were agreed to in the following decades, but they lacked the status of binding international law.

In 1978, a draft text for the Convention on the Rights of the Child was proposed. A United Nations' working group spent years revising this text, which was brought to the United Nations General Assembly and accepted in November 1989. The Convention officially came into effect in September 1990, after it had been ratified by twenty states.

As of April 2007, the Convention on the Rights of the Child had been ratified by 193 countries, with the United States and Somalia being the only two countries not to have done so.

Click here to read the full text of the Convention.