UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, with 196 state parties as of 2026 (the United States remains the only UN member state not to have ratified). The Convention treats children as rights-bearing subjects entitled to protection, provision, and participation — rather than as property of parents or objects of state benevolence. Its 54 articles cover civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, organized around four general principles: non-discrimination, best interests of the child, right to life and development, and respect for the child's views. The Convention's intellectual foundation traces directly to Korczak's 1929 essay The Child's Right to Respect, with the Polish delegation that proposed the Convention in 1979 explicitly invoking his framework as its philosophical basis.