Samantha Arnold: Children’s Rights and Refugee Law Conceptualizing Children within the Refugee Convention New York, NY: Routledge. 2018, 220pp, ISBN-13: 978-1138052710

Excerpt

Samantha Arnold’s book, Children’s Rights and Refugee Law, Conceptualizing Children within the Refugee Convention, begins with an introductory chapter outlining the lack of legislation targeted specifically at the protection of refugee children. Near the end of that chapter Arnold sums up the purpose of her complex research in one simple sentence reading; “Above all, this research aims to conceptualize the child refugee by identifying characteristics associated with declarations of refugee protection” (Arnold 2018, p. 10). Before this summary, however, she takes the reader through the more complex reality of the situation of child refugee laws and brings to light the basic issues in need of addressing. In 1951, the United Nations adopted the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a treaty that defines what constitutes a refugee and outlines the rights of refugees. This agreement pre-dates the world’s recognition of the need for international laws protecting children and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was signed in 1989. This brings up the question, is the 1951 Refugee Convention adequate in protecting child refugees, or is the world in need of more specific laws governing child refugees? If it does turn out that the world needs more child refugee specific laws, then we must also ask what would those laws contain and who exactly would they protect? Arnold describes the relationship between the CRC and the 1951 Refugee Convention as dichotomic one. This can plainly be seen as a problematic and relevant issue as the number of child refugees has increased in the past 8 years as UNICEF has been quoted as reporting: “The global number of refugee and migrant children moving alone has reached a record high, increasing nearly five-fold since 2010, UNICEF said today in a new report. At least 300,000 unaccompanied and separated children were recorded in some 80 countries in the combined years of 2015 and 2016, up from 66,000 in 2010 and 2011” (UNICEF 2017, p. 1). It is clear that the CRC and 1951 Refugee Convention must be brought together to form laws for child refugees, and the CRC is where Samantha Arnold believes is the beginning ground as she outlines further in her introductory chapter. The CRC was revolutionary in that it established children’s rights from a viewpoint outside of the scope of the law. After close examination of the CRC, Arnold stresses the importance of Article 6 which takes an enormous step in defining child specific rights by stating that development en route to adulthood is just as important as merely surviving. This essentially states that a child’s development is on the same level of importance as keeping them alive, and violating their right to develop would be the same as violating their right to life. Arnold points to the development of this point within the CRC and suggests that this mentality needs to be carried over into refugee law as refugee children are having their right to develop violated every day they are being displaced instead of in school. As Arnold concludes her beginning chapter, she prepares the reader for a more in depth look into child laws, refugee laws, and their need for an overlap to fully answer the questions: do we need new child refugee legislation, and if so what will it be? She begins this analysis by first defining childhood and its characteristics. …