New book reframes children’s rights in liberal political thought
New book from the European Children’s Rights Unit's Deputy Director, Dr Nicolás Brando, scrutinises assumptions and biases that shape our understanding of childhood.
‘Childhood in Liberal Theory: Equality, Difference, and Children’s Rights', which launches today, provides a comprehensive study of childhood and children’s rights within liberal theory. Published by Oxford University Press for the British Academy, the book delves into the philosophical underpinnings of childhood and children’s rights, offering fresh perspectives and challenges existing paradigms.
One of the book’s key contributions is its novel approach to studying childhood and children’s rights as philosophical topics. The research debates that traditional methods often assume the need to treat children as different legal subjects, leading to frameworks that inadequately protect their rights as human and fail to integrate them fully into the discourse on justice and equality.
In a bid to rectify this issue, an alternative framework is proposed which emphasises flexibility and responsiveness to the varying capacities, interests, and life-worlds of children. It argues that strict distinctions between adults and children are unjust and should be amended to better align with the principles of liberal justice. The book encourages readers to question their assumptions about ‘who children are?’, and about how they should be treated as right-holders.
Speaking of the book, Professor David Archard, Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, shared: “This book is a wonderful exploration of the important idea that there is something fundamentally unjust and wrong with treating children differently from adults… This is a highly original, rich, thoughtful, and robustly argued contribution to the literature of moral and political theory devoted to childhood and children."
Dr Nicolás Brando holds expertise in the philosophy of childhood and children’s rights, with a particular focus on theories of justice, equality, vulnerability, and the capabilities approach.
Childhood in Liberal Theory: Equality, Difference, and Children’s Rights is freely accessible online in Open-Access, and is available to order via Oxford University Press.