Youth, Globalization, and the Law

My work with Professor Elizabeth Heger Boyle and Katja Guenther, as part of the Youth, Globalization, and the Law project, started as an independent study with Professor Boyle linking our interests in globalization and human rights' issues. Later we received funding from a Graduate Research Partnership Program through the College of Liberal Arts and Graduate School at the University of Minnesota. Through Professor Boyle, we joined the Social Science Research Council's (SSRC) working group on Youth, Globalization, and the Law. Our work ended in our published chapter, “The Rise of the Child as an Individual in Global Society" published in Youth, Globalization, and the Law (edited by Sudhir Alladi and Venkatesh and Ronald Kassimir) by Stanford University Press.

We were interested in how the international community's view of children and families (and the actors within families) were viewed historically and internationally. We examined how different actors in the family and actors related to families, such as employers, were discussed by the international community in relation to human rights through a sociological neo-institutionalist framework.

We focused on analyzing international treaties and documents relating to children and families from 1919 (the Minimum Age Convention by the International Labor Organization) to the current  time period (ending with the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Children and Optional Protocols). In addition, we analyzed communication between the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and various countries in relation to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Our main findings show that two key concepts define youth - individualism and universalism. As children gain rights over time, universalism masks global economic inequalities. In the early 20th century, there was a multi-tiered system. For example, children in colonies were treated differently (i.e. they could work longer hours and in different industries) than children in developed nations. In alignment with current human rights’ trends, in the contemporary period all children are treated the same. Hence, children’s rights should have universal applicability. Furthermore, the conception of childhood has changed over time. In the early documents, children were views as miniature adults, as a protected class in the middle of the t20th century, to the current state of individuals endowed with the same rights as adults. Children can now assert autonomy from states and even their families. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children’s interests come first and families are there to serve their children. This reflects the current human rights’ trend of individualism.

For more information about the book, Youth, Globalization, and the Law, in which our chapter is published, please visit the two links below.