Abstract
Using ideology as heuristic, a legal sociological approach is employed to critically evaluate a child’s legal status and its evolution since the eighteenth century. Four principal phases are identified: (1) legal ideology of individualism in the common law tradition; (2) movement from status to contract; (3) movement from status to rights; and (4) movement from status to agency. To strengthen legal agency both status and capacity are addressed. In the fourth phase, legal status has evolved in ways capable of facilitating children’s legal agency; it has evolved from being static to being dynamic, and is now determined by reference to public international law, rather than territorially. This article advances a universal norm of legal capacity to sue for violations of human rights, which is derived from the recent developments in human rights law. In the evolution of children’s rights we are presently witnessing the movement from status to agency.
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