Human rights doctrine defines its brief inclusively to encompass “all members of the human family” (Universal Declaration, preamble). But the vantage point from which human interactions are viewed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), although it invokes the family metaphor, is partial: all humans “should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” (art. 1). This disjunction between inclusive membership and partial perspective encapsulates the position of children in human rights doctrine: they are included in the broad scope of protection but peripheral to the framing conception of agency. The particular conception of “human” motivating the doctrine is restrictive in other ways relevant to childhood: article 1 of the UDHR states, “All humans … are endowed with reason and conscience,” which is manifestly not true unless “endowed” is interpreted to indicate a capability rather than an ontological state. But “endowed” suggests a current reality, not a future possibility. As the Brazilian delegation to the UDHR drafting process wryly noted, “[U]nfortunately it is not exactly true that all men are endowed by nature with reason and conscience” (qtd. in Morsink 297). And it is certainly not true that all children are. How, then, do children fit into the human rights project?