Critical examination of the term "best interest of the child" in the UN-CRC

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Social Pedagogy / Social Work, grade: 2,0, University of Applied Sciences Coburg, language: English, abstract: In the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the central concepts is the ‘best interest of the child’ as captured in article 3. However, there is no universal definition of what this term includes. It is fairly open to interpretation. Its primary objective is the protection of the child, but often there is controversy regarding its construction. Why is the ‘best interest of the child’ so important? Why is it so difficult to define the ‘best interest of the child’? Should this vague term even exist? Is there an alternative? These are the questions that led to writing this paper. The following will be a comparison of the negative and positive aspects of the ‘best interest’. To start, there will be an overview over the history and structural composition of the UN Convention. Most literature used was in the German language, translations of literal citations can be found in the footnotes.