INTRODUCTION

As a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the United Kingdom (UK) is required to undertake ‘all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures’ to implement the rights guaranteed to children across the whole of its jurisdiction. However, responsibility for legislation and policy as well as the planning and delivery of many services affecting how children experience their rights in the UK is devolved to the respective administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Similarly, in many countries worldwide, responsibility for the implementation of human rights, including children’s rights, is ‘decentralised’ or ‘devolved’ to subnational, regional or local authorities. Arrangements for devolution vary, but typically provide for local control over policy in areas such as health, education, housing and welfare, often accompanied by fiscal decentralisation and legislative competence. This chapter will discuss how governmental institutions in Wales have made use of devolved powers to incorporate the CRC into national law, including legislative competence.

Wales is a country of the UK, with a population of just over three million people, approximately 21 per cent of whom are under 18 years of age. Located to the southwest of the UK, with Cardiffas its capital, Wales has a strong social and cultural identity, including a native language spoken by about 30 per cent of the population. Since the sixteenth century and up until very recently, statute law applicable in Wales was wholly determined by the UK Parliament, with a ‘Welsh Office’ established in 1965 to implement UK Government policies in Wales. These arrangements continued until 1999, when the Government of Wales Act 1998 (hereinafter ‘the 1998 Act’) established devolution for Wales. Initially this was limited to the transfer of executive functions from UK ministers to a National Assembly for Wales (hereinafter ‘the Assembly’) in Cardiff. However, since 1999, through a series of enactments (see below), Welsh devolution has gradually been enlarged, with many competences over legislation and policy previously held by the UK Parliament and UK ministers being transferred to the Assembly and Welsh ministers (hereinafter ‘ministers’ refers to Welsh ministers). In May 2020 the Assembly was renamed the ‘Senedd’ or ‘Welsh Parliament’ (to avoid confusion, the term ‘Assembly’ is used throughout).