Rethinking children’s rights in relation to planetary rights: A relational perspective in the era of climate change and other crises

Abstract

This article delves into the intricate relationship between children’s rights and the broader landscape of human and more-than-human rights in times of planetary pluri-crises. While acknowledging the historical significance of the United Nation adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as a late 20th-century milestone, this contribution challenges the notion of treating children’s rights as a distinct right’s issue within the global context of ecological, social, economic and political turmoil. The article identifies three intensities around children’s rights within the ‘rights’ discourse to argue that ‘rights’ are always relational. Using a relational mapping informed approach to analysis, a series of three intensities is presented: a hierarchy of ‘rights’, doing ‘rights’ in the Anthropocene and thinking ‘rights’ in the context of pluri-crisis education. These intensities play across scales at local and planetary levels and highlight the urgency of reimagining children’s rights as relational with planetary rights. The article concludes with an imagined place-based scenario that explores how this mapping of intensities makes visible relational rights for early childhood education in times of climate crises in Australia, and beyond.