The evolution of the child’s legal status in Cambodia : international framing of a traditional status
Author: Timmerman, Agathe
Under the direction of: Patrick Meunier
University of Lille
Texte français
Keywords: Law, Cambodia, Evolution, Legal status, Child, Cambodia, Normative system, Tradition, Children - Legal status - Cambodia, Children - Legal status (international law), Children - Rights, Law and globalization, Children - Protection - Assistance.
Abstract
Thirty years after the signing of the Paris Agreements, and since the ratification of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Kingdom of Cambodia in 1992, the adoption of legal norms marked by foreign influences continues to grow. These norms convey the Western vision of the law regarding the legal status of the child. They are grafted on from other norms, mainly Hindu and Buddhist, pre-existing, of oral tradition and deeply rooted in the country. These two normative systems coexist, and confront each other around their opposing visions of the legal status of the child. Cambodia’s traditional normative system, composed of religious and social norms, regulates social, family and good conduct of the child. This system apprehends the child as an object of law. It favours duties and hierarchy over rights and leaves little space for autonomy and emancipation. This conception of the child as an object of law persists and remains predominant in Cambodia. In family matters, transfers of foreign laws, particularly Japanese and French. law, have regulated the objective situation of the child in its legal status by granting it legal personality, regulate legal incapacity, and protection against family dysfunctions and failures. Admittedly, under the influence of the integration of international standards, it tends to fade and take on their shapes. Indeed, like Cambodian law in general, children’s rights have not escaped its internationalization. These international standards integrated into domestic law understand the child as a subject of law. He was then assigned economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. However, the effective recognition of the child subject of law in Cambodia is a failure because the situation of Cambodian children remains weakened by persistent violations of their rights and their difficult implementation.
