IF 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we must do all we can as a society to reject our Covid-19 recovery as getting “back to business as usual”. The pandemic has highlighted beyond all measure the frailty of our public institutions, undermined by a decade of austerity and an ideological reliance upon the private sector.
While the outlook for our health has taken a much-needed positive turn with the success of a UK vaccine roll-out, our attention must turn to the inevitable and incoming socio-economic fallout. As we attempt to “build back better”, a dishearteningly empty phrase adopted by governments around the world, we must begin to do so by ensuring the future of those most vulnerable in our society are protected and catered for. A good place to start would be remembering that which is inherent to us all: basic human rights.
In September, the Scottish Parliament introduced the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, becoming the first nation within the UK to discuss firm legal commitments to respect, protect, and fulfil a broad range of children’s human rights within Scotland’s domestic legal system. It is a discussion long overdue and may yet come to be remembered as a watershed moment in Scotland’s long and proud social history.
READ MORE: Why 2021 will be a huge year for Scotland’s children
The UNCRC is the world’s most ratified (signed up to) human rights treaty in the world, with only one very notable absentee, the United States. The UK ratified the UNCRC in 1991, but as with many other important human rights treaties, failed to provide the protections outlined in international law within our domestic legal framework. What this means is children’s rights in Scotland, such as the right to life, health, food, education, free expression, and even play (to name but a minute few), are not directly enforceable within our courts. The UNCRC contains 54 articles outlining a wide range of children’s human rights, both civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural, and under the terms of which, governments around the world are required to meet children’s basic needs, harness and encourage the fulfilment of their potential, and provide a platform from which all children can flourish. So, what could the bill achieve and why is it such a significant step for Scotland to “build back better”?
Key achievements of the bill are numerous but at its foundations, the bill would place a duty upon all public authorities in Scotland to act compatibly with the rights contained within the UNCRC. Further, it would provide our domestic courts with powers to decide if new legislation is compatible or not and where Scottish legislation undermines children’s human rights strike it down, as we have seen being achieved in Sweden, providing Scotland with a decent template for moving forward.
In more detail, the bill ensures the Scottish Government must produce and publish a Children’s Rights Scheme, exampling how Scotland intends to take steps towards fulfilling the rights outlined by the UNCRC and explain future plans and policies for the realisation of children’s rights. It places key considerations around non-discrimination, enabling children’s right to be heard and to participate in decision-making, and emphasises key connections are made between the realisation of human rights and Scotland’s national budgetary commitments. Perhaps what it achieves most significantly, is the entrenchment of accountability within Scotland’s socio-economic, political, and legal processes.
Not only does this bill signal the intention of Scotland to break away from the hollow lip service paid to children’s human rights by the UK Government, it marks the start of a potential national conversation in which human rights can begin to take centre stage and directly influence past and future policies. As once stated by Nelson Mandela “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”.
READ MORE: Scotland to lead UK with ‘ambitious’ children’s bill
This bill represents a timely and all too rare opportunity to once again remember, reflect, and exhibit Scotland’s social soul to the world… the rest of the UK would do well to take note and follow in Scotland’s footsteps.
Aidan Flegg is a PhD researcher at Glasgow University conducting a project focused on economic and social human rights
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