So good evening, and thank you very much for inviting me, and for listening to me in the

coming hour or so.

The idea is that I will first speak through the topic, and that we then have a more formal

but whenever you feel an urge to intervene, ask a question, raise a comment during the lecture,

please feel free to do so. I'm not doing the traditional lecture where I have my script that I read.

It's with PowerPoints and I'm thinking while I'm talking, and so I'm also happy to think together with you.

So please don't feel any restraint to raise any questions whenever you want.

And I will repeat the gist of the question because as you notice this is being recorded so that it also makes sense for the virtual audience afterwards.

Now when we kind of discussed the topic for this lecture, there was this idea that children's rights might be a topic that is interesting for different audiences.

At the same time children's rights is a vast field and so we decided to go for a slightly more specific topic.

And so I probably decided within a couple of minutes this will be the topic.

Children's rights, the threat to family values.

And then you start preparing and you wonder what you want to say exactly.

Why did I choose this topic? And I should have shown you the title already for those who couldn't recall.

Well in a way you could say it goes to the heart of an ongoing discussion we have in this field of children's rights,

which I see very much as part and parcel of the broader human rights legal framework.

So when I talk about children's rights and to avoid any confusion on this I mean the human rights of children.

So I'm talking about children's rights in that more specific sense.

Sometimes people give it a broader reading.

But so I take this human rights angle.

Now you may recognize this map. It's the kind of map you now find on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

And it shows you the ratification status of each of the nine core human rights treaties, among which also the Children's Rights Convention.

Now I'm sure the print is too small to read, but for once that's convenient.

Because what you see is an overwhelmingly dark blue map with one state singled out in a lighter type of blue.

There is also the orange, which means no action taken by the state.

So no state is in orange here. So it means all states have taken action.

And for those who have very sharp eyes you will see there are a couple of gray areas.

These are disputed territories.

And so that's then a way of solving that political and diplomatic problem.

And so what we see is that the Convention on the Rights of the Child has almost a universal ratification status.

We have 996 states parties, so states that have signed and ratified the Children's Rights Convention.

And so where the CRC applies and there is only one state that I don't want to singled out.

And so don't mention explicitly that has signed, but not yet ratified, hence the light blue color.

Now it's in that state, the United States of America, that you also have that particular discussion

and where there is a strong lobby, there are different strong lobbies, against ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

One is the capital punishment lobby. And so they fear that the CRC, ratification of the CRC,

might be a first step towards then also abolishment of capital punishment.

So that's the reason why they oppose.

But there is also a strong lobby that feels that ratification of the CRC is the end of the family

and family values, parental authority and so on.

And in a way that's the entry point you could say where I want to start, not so much to focus on the United States of America,

but because it's a concern that you can feel also in many other states, including increasingly in Europe,

where there is more and more also a debate whether the Convention on the Rights of the Child in a way is not pushing it too far

and not threatening a number of values that should be preserved.

And very often then the rhetoric is in terms of family values.

And then the next word very often is parental authority.

It's certainly also in other continents and in particular in Africa very often an argument

that has been voiced that is the additional layer that it may be too individualistic

and also a threat to broader community values.

Now let me start maybe with a couple of comments that I make partly as a technical lawyer