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Incorporating the CRC in Norway
- Edited by Ursula Kilkelly, Laura Lundy, Bronagh Byrne
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- Book:
- Incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into National Law
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 10 December 2021
- Print publication:
- 25 June 2021, pp 231-260
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Summary
COUNTRY OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter CRC or ‘the Convention’) was incorporated into Norwegian law in 2003 by being included in the Human Rights Act. This was a full and direct incorporation. The context and legal implications will be explained below.
As of 1 January 2020, Norway had 5.37 million inhabitants, with just under 1,120,000 below the age of 18 years, making up 21 per cent of the population. During the previous three years, the number of children had gone down by 12,400. A little over 19 per cent of children have an immigrant background (immigrants or born to immigrant parents).
Norway is a state with a national central authority and some autonomy for the 356 municipalities. Due to their autonomy, the municipalities were not bound by the CRC until it was made part of Norwegian law.
The Nordic legal tradition may be described as something in between the common law and civil law systems. There is a separate Act for every sector of the government administration, in addition to Acts regulating private law. However, development of the law also takes place in the courts. Where the law is vague or discretionary, courts may have to apply policy considerations in their interpretation of the law, and a clarification of the law may imply developing or even creating law.
Norway has a strong tradition of ratifying human rights instruments and is a party to all the United Nations (UN) human rights conventions, except the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. The CRC was ratified in January 1991 and its two first Optional Protocols, the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (OPSC) and the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The complaints mechanisms under the following treaties have been ratified: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention against Torture (ICAT), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Intersex Children and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- from PART VI - INTERSEX AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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- By Kirsten Sandberg, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
- Edited by Jens M. Scherpe, Anatol Dutta, Tobias Helms
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- Book:
- The Legal Status of Intersex Persons
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 31 January 2019
- Print publication:
- 12 September 2018, pp 515-535
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
The term ‘intersex children’ is often used as a short term for children born with ambiguous sex characteristics, or put differently, diagnosed as having special medical conditions associated with differences in sex development. In fact there are a number of varieties, but the common feature is that it is difficult to determine whether the child is a girl or a boy. A major question is whether the child should be assigned a sex at birth or in early infancy and go through surgery and other forms of treatment to obtain that sex. For decades such medical interventions have been performed in the belief that they were necessary. However, doubt has been cast on whether it is possible to successfully assign a gender to an infant. Not only is it questionable whether the treatment is beneficial to the person concerned, but it has also gradually become known that the treatment in many instances has had various harmful effects on the children (and later adults) concerned, both physically and mentally. Consequently, over the last 10 to 15 years increasing attention has been paid to the person's human rights in this regard.
Children have rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as well as under all other human rights conventions. This chapter mainly deals with the CRC, which focuses specifically on children and whose provisions are adapted to their special situation and needs, but other conventions will be mentioned where they are relevant. The chapter seeks to interpret and apply the CRC in the context of intersex children, in order to answer the question of whether a child may and should be assigned a sex in the early stages of life. The aim is also to outline the more specific obligations of the state under the Convention in this respect.
Almost all states in the world have ratified the CRC, making it a globally recognised instrument. The implementation of the CRC in the various countries is monitored by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which is a body comprised of 18 members from around the world, so-called independent experts.
Care Placements of Children Outside their Parental Home - Concerns of Culture
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- By Sanne Hofman, Legal Advisor in Child Rights, Save the Children, Norway, Kirsten Sandberg, Professor of Law, Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo, Norway
- Edited by Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg
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- Book:
- The Child's Interests in Conflict
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 12 December 2017
- Print publication:
- 04 January 2016, pp 73-84
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
As part of a larger project, entitled “From formal rights to real rights” at the Institute of Women's Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, the subproject “Cultural considerations – in the best interests of the child?” analysed Norwegian decisions on taking minority children into care. The research question was how the “cultural background of the child” had been used as an argument in such decisions.
More specifically, the questions were, first, in what ways the cultural background of the child had been used in the assessment of the basic requirements for taking a child into care, and second, how it had been taken into account in the best interests determination which has to be undertaken once the requirements are considered to be fulfilled. The third issue that emerged from looking into the cases was the consideration of culture in deciding where the child should be placed, that is, in what kind of a foster home.
In this chapter, a “minority child” is understood as a child with an ethnicity and cultural background other than Norwegian, and who may have a different language and/or religion (that is, not belonging to Norway's majority church, the Church of Norway). The term “cultural background” is used as the short form of “ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background”, as in Article 20(3) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Taking as a starting point the legal rules and their interpretation through the use of authoritative legal sources, not least by the Supreme Court of Norway, the project examined decisions from the county boards and the courts of first and second instance to see how the law was applied in practice. The county board is the competent body to decide that a child is to be taken into public care, whether or not with the consent of the parents or the child. It is an administrative body; however, it resembles a court in its independence and procedural safeguards to the extent that it is considered as a “court”, e.g. under the European Convention of Human Rights. Its decisions may be brought before the court of first instance, the County Court, whose decisions may in turn be appealed to the Court of Appeal.