Children and the Rights of Citizens: Nondomination and Intergenerational Justice

• Author: James Bohman
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716210383114
• Published date: 01 January 2011
• Date: 01 January 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

128 ANNALS, AAPSS, 633, January 2011

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

emphasizes the importance of the temporal dimen-

sion of childhood and children’s need for special pro-

tection. Such protection is necessary because of their

susceptibility to domination, especially intergenera-

tional domination. The same is true for past and

future generations, where such domination includes

the domination of and by the current generation of

children, especially around intergenerational, public

goods important for a good human life. Such an

account of intergenerational justice captures the focus

of the CRC’s Preamble on improving the quality of

the lives of children.

Keywords: human rights; child rights; intergen-

erational justice; global warming;

nondomination

The Convention on the Rights of the Child

(CRC) formulates a diverse set of rights

oriented toward the situation of the child.

Children are the bearers of robust rights, even

if they cannot lay claim to the entire comple-

ment of rights and statuses found in docu-

ments concerned with fully developed adult

citizens. The CRC gives moral and legal sta-

tuses to children, giving them special protec-

tions and entitlements, many of which protect

their particular vulnerabilities. While chil-

dren have some moral and legal statuses that

are different from those of adult citizens, the

CRC recognizes that they will become inde-

pendent adults, giving some of the rights of

the child an obvious temporal dimension. This

temporal dimension of human maturation is

expressed in the Declaration on the Rights of

the Child and forms part the Preamble to the

Children and the

Rights of

Citizens:

Nondomination

and

Intergenerational

Justice

By

JAMES BOHMAN

James Bohman is Danforth Professor of Philosophy

and professor of international studies at Saint Louis

University. He is author of Democracy across Borders

(MIT Press 2007), Public Deliberation: Pluralism,

Complexity and Democracy (MIT Press 1996), and

New Philosophy of Social Science: Problems of Inde-

terminacy (MIT Press 1991).

DOI: 10.1177/0002716210383114