fatvegan

There are only two United Nations members who have not ratified the CRC - the USA and Somalia - making it the most widely ratified convention in the history of the UN. HREOC Report

From the same chatper:

Furthermore, while the CRC does not explicitly define 'best interests' it is clear that in the case of actions and decisions affecting a child, it is the best interests of that individual child which must be taken into account rather than children generally.

I had to read that a few times to understand what they meant. It's referring to the government's justification that mandatory detention is justified in the sense it stops other children from attempting to come here in the future. Which the government believes isn't in their best interests. The children here are made to suffer, purely to deter parents from bringing other children. We accepted the deterrent argument for adults, but HREOC isn't suggesting it doesn't hold for children.

The exact words of the convention:

the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children (article 3(1))

It's hard to know if the authors meant this to suggest that the rights of any given child must be protected, even at the expense of children in general.

It's like having a law forbidding soldiers from interrogating child soldiers. It will, theoretically, protect child soldiers who are captured. But it will also encourage armies to use children to perform roles where they are likely to be captured.

What would the UNHRC view on that issue be I wonder? They'd probably be purist about it, and wouldn't go with the messy "greater good" line. I don't know what I think.

It's a bit similar to what Tom was saying. Should we violate international human rights agreements, if we think that doing so will result in a more humane outcome? The odd thing, human rights conventions are meant to be uncompromising - unsullied by political pragmatism and all that. It's our democratic laws that are supposed to be impure and practical at the expense of compassion. If you think that human rights aren't actually all that humane, what do you do?

Not sure how I feel about the original point. I'm probably inclined to believe that if making life less than perfect for a few hundred child can keep 1000s of others out of danger, then that's reasonable. Fortunately, this probably isn't one of those situations. If we were really concerned about children and the bigger picture, then we'd just let them all come here. If it's a choice between putting children in detention or having lots drown in boats on the way here, then that's very tricky. But if it's a choice between putting children in detention or paying a few hundred million dollars a year in welfare payments to all the refugee families that can't get jobs, then it's easy. You just pay the stupid money.