THE EVOLVING CAPACITIES OF THE CHILD

Abstract

It establishes that as children acquire enhanced competencies, there is a reduced need for direction and a greater capacity to take responsibility for decisions affecting their lives. The Convention recognizes that children in different environments and cultures who are faced with diverse life experiences will acquire competencies at different ages, and their acquisition of competencies will vary according to circumstances. It also allows for the fact that children’s capacities can differ according to the nature of the rights to be exercised. Children, therefore, require varying degrees of protection, participation and opportunity for autonomous decision-making in different contexts and across different areas of decision-making. The concept of evolving capacities is central to the balance embodied in the Convention between recog nising children as active agents in their own lives, entitled to be listened to, respected and granted increasing autonomy in the exercise of rights, while also being entitled to protection in accordance with their relative immaturity and youth. This concept pro vides the basis for an appropriate respect for chil dren’s agency without exposing them prematurely to the full responsibilities normally associated with adulthood. It is important to recognise that it is not respect for rights, as such, which is influenced by the evolving capacities of children: All the rights in the Convention on the Rights of the Child extend to all children irrespective of capacity. What is at issue is where responsibility for the exercise of the rights lies.