The Statelessness of the World's Children

Abstract

At the heart of the discourse and practice of children’s rights lie basic assumptions about the relationship between the young and the nation-state. On one hand, the lives of children are considered as if they are nested within the boundaries of a single nation. On the other hand, the state — as signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) — is positioned as the primary guarantor of the rights and well-being of young people. A naturalised understanding about the relationship of young people to nation-states is evidenced in the annual UNICEF report, The State of the World’s Children, which accounts for the situation of children globally by reference to indicators of health, education and so on, organised by country (UNICEF, 2006). At the same time, this report can also be read as a commentary on the state of the world’s nation-states, in which the well-being of children serves as an indicator of national progress. This illustrates the two-way relationship in which children are critical — at least in symbolic terms — to states, just as those same states are seen to play a central role in the lives of the young.