Child Labour in the Global Human Rights Regime

It is widely accepted that child labour and child slavery are violations of children's fundamental human rights. But how do we define "child," "labour," and "child labour"? How does child labour relate to "child slavery"? What political, economic, legal, social, and cultural forces drive global discussions around these concepts and the concept of "human rights" itself? Who arbitrates on these matters? Most fundamentally, how are such questions themselves complicated by differences between modern and modernizing societies and by shifts within the global political economy? Paul Close addresses these problems head-on, revealing and tackling the labyrinthine complexity of an issue that is all too often oversimplified, even within academic literature. Using a unique lens that views global definitions and practices regarding child labour, child slavery, and human rights as functions of the international political economy, Close reassess previous theoretical approaches to the relation between child labour and human rights, provides new insights into the protean quality of the fundamental concepts at play in global discussions around the issue, reveals new interconnections between child labour and the political and economic spheres of social life under globalization, and untangles the relationship between the global human rights regime and other supranational social and legal constructs that tend towards the creation of a single global social space or global society. Child Labour in the Global Human Rights Regime is essential reading for researchers and students interested in child labour, human rights, and children's rights, and it is of keen interest to policymakers, NGOs, and other international agencies working to implement children's rights.