Briefing Paper

All the world loves a child?

This brief report describes UNICEF’s call for a World Summit for Children to be held in September 1990, due to the ethic that the health and wellbeing of the world’s children is a significant measure of its level of development. An expression of this ethic is the Convention on the Rights of the Child which has been presented to the General Assembly of the United Nations, and covers the following rights of children: the right to life, the right to develop their potential, and protection against violence and exploitation. The practical consequences of death and suffering of the children worldwide are long-term, and UNICEF concludes that an effort to protect the lives and development of children would be ‘the greatest long-term investment which the human race could make in its future’.