The CRC in litigation under the ECHR: The CRC and the ECHR: The contribution of the european court of human rights to the implementation of article 12 of the CRC

Abstract

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is a uniquely successful system for enforcing human rights, but it contains few references to children’s rights. The case law of the European Court of Human Rights is a rich source of human rights, which, at the same time, has been interpreted in a way that advances children’s rights. This chapter aims to explore the contribution of the European Court’s jurisprudence in this area; in particular, it considers the use of article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to interpret the ECHR in the two areas of child access/custody and juvenile justice.