Americas and Europe: New resources on case-law relating to children’s rights in regional human rights systems
The European Court of Human Rights recently published a new Court in relation to the Rights of the Child. This guide explores the various articles of the Convention from a child-rights perspective and offers a very comprehensive overview of relevant case-law under each element. It is worth highlighting that the first area of focus of the guide is private life, which includes name, citizenship, birth registration, right to know one’s origins and surrogacy – all issues linked to the right to identity and at the heart of CHIP’s work. Likewise, the second section addresses case-law relating to custody, access and contact rights, children in care, adoption and abduction. Other areas that are relevant include those relating to children on the move and access to justice. The European Court’s case-law has offered very interesting interpretations and decisions on children’s rights, which are important for all practitioners in the region.
Furthermore, at the regional level of the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights together with Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice have also recently published a resource on the Inter-American Court’s case-law in relation to children and adolescents in the region. It provides a thematic approach to children’s rights by addressing enforced disappearances and armed violence, slavery and forced labour, children in care and adoption, children on the move, the right to identity, including a name, nationality and family relations and access to justice. This publication, too, is very comprehensive in offering a detailed overview of all case-law relating to children and adolescents, and demonstrating that the right to identity is at the heart of a number of circumstances affecting children’s family relations.
Thus, CHIP welcomes these regional overviews of children’s rights as addressed by regional human rights systems and the fact that the right to identity and its potential violations in a wide variety of contexts and circumstances have been duly addressed and included.
See: European Court of Human Rights (2024). Guide on the case-law of the European Convention on Human Rights. Rights of the child. https://ks.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr-ks/guide_rights_of_the_child_eng; Espejo Yaksic, N., Aguirre Gallardo, C. and Galicia Mendoza, D. A. (2025). Líneas de precedentes de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Derechos de la niñez y la adolescencia. Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación and Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. https://www.sitios.scjn.gob.mx/cec/editorial/derechos-ninez-adolescencia
