The 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in November2014 is an appropriate occasion for reviewing its record of achievements andchallenges in protecting children's rights worldwide. Clear accomplishments tobuild on are the comprehensive nature of the Convention and its capacity toaccommodate the largely diverse contexts in which its provisions are to berealized. In addition, widespread and massive law reform is one of the mosttangible achievements stimulated by the Convention. Finally, the existence andperformance of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, charged with monitoringthe implementation of the Convention, has been assessed positively. Mostrecently, this was rewarded with the entry into force of the third OptionalProtocol to the Convention, which introduced communications procedures includingindividual and state complaints mechanisms. After having reviewed this record ofselected achievements critically, four selected major challenges that stillstand in the way of the fuller realization of the Convention will be presentedmore briefly. The main reason for this difference in emphasis is that, on thewhole, the achievements speak more significantly to issues concerning theprogressive development of international law while the challenges are, on thewhole, more of a practical nature. The latter are: the persistence of povertyand other root causes of many child rights problems; difficulties in permeatinginto the private – including domestic and corporate –sphere where a considerable number of child rights violations occur but whichare still hardly covered explicitly by international human rights law; andissues concerning the availability of data and resources.