Child-friendly Justice and Procedural Safeguards for Children in Criminal Proceedings

With the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) thirty years ago, juvenile justice was confirmed to be an issue of children’s
rights. As a result of this, juvenile justice matters have profited from the emerging
attention to the rights of children throughout the past thirty years. Children’s rights
have become part of law and institutional reform in many of the 196 countries that
have embraced the CRC, which has had a significant influence on domestic criminal justice systems and the treatment of children within these systems. One concept
that has emerged as part of this development is the concept of child-friendly justice.
Child-friendly justice has its focus on the effective participation of children in justice
systems. Its emergence was largely fuelled by European case law on juvenile justice