Abstract
ABSTRACTIn my contribution to this collection, I aim to expose how the growing transnationalisation of groups of affected persons – in this case children and young people – has brought to the fore normative contradictions and tensions built into the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. More specifically, I will show how the universal notion of children’s rights and a strong global consensus on the ‘scourge’ of child labour has been challenged through the empowerment of affected persons – in this case child workers. Building on critical constructivist thinking on norms, my core argument is that the increasing access of affected persons’ organisations (APOs) to international organisations and high-level events brings with it an increase in norm contestation. Rather than creating new normative contestations, I will show in my analysis, the inclusion of the most affected brings to light normative inconsistencies and ambiguities that have been potentially ingrained in international treaties but hitherto successfully suppressed by powerful norm advocates. The articulation of subversive perspectives on child labour by working children and young people, I will conclude, results in normative tensions and collisions and a reconsideration of seemingly universal values previously taken for granted.
Highlights
Advocates of the idea of human rights as universal, interdependent and indivisible are often inclined to gloss over the contradictory aspects of human rights norms or problems of privileging some human rights over others
In its exploration of the effects of the empowerment of affected persons’ organisations (APOs), the paper departs from widely shared essentialist perspectives on norms which continue to dominate the discipline of International Relations
Apart from the theoretical contribution this paper aims to make, it extends the range of ‘affected persons’ that are seen to be relevant in global governance by exemplifying the dynamics of APOs’ empowerment and norm contestation in the case of working children
Summary
Advocates of the idea of human rights as universal, interdependent and indivisible are often inclined to gloss over the contradictory aspects of human rights norms or problems of privileging some human rights over others. My core argument in this article is that the empowerment and increasing agency of ‘the most affected’ inside and outside of international organisations in many cases brings to light normative tensions and collisions inherent to the international human rights regime.[2]
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