Introduction: Implementing Child Rights

The UN Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC) has emerged as a central yardstick in assessing policies and practices concerning children. Norway has incorporated the convention in domestic law and performs exceptionally well in global indexes on children’s rights. However, the level of compliance and implementation by Norway with the CRC has attracted criticism and many questions can be raised about these global indexes. This chapter sets out this paradox and the background for the book’s key questions: What is the extent of implementation? Can we improve measurement? And what might explain the paradox? The remainder of the chapter explains the book’s mixed method approach and choice of themes; summarises the key findings concerning implementation (legal, qualitative and statistical); identifies cross-cutting concerns; and explores potential reasons for non-implementation in certain areas.