EU diplomacy and children’s rights: the dialogue with regional and global organizations for the promotion of a child-friendly justice

The contribution explores the role of EU diplomacy for the protection and promotion of children’s rights, examining the relationships and interactions existing between the EU and other regional and global organizations in the field. The intention is to present part of the results of the EU co-funded research project “MiRI - Minor’s Right to Information in civil actions - Improving children’s right to information in crossborder civil cases” (JUST-JCOO-AG-2018-831608). In particular, the issues connected with the creation of a “child-friendly” civil justice will be addressed in the perspective of the dialogue between the EU and those international organizations, in order to examine the modalities, mechanisms and difficulties underlying this dialogue. The action of the EU must be read in the light of the founding Treaties, where there is no direct and general power conferred upon the EU institutions to protect and promote human rights: accordingly, there is no general competence attributed to the EU as concerns children’s rights. In this context, the EU has acknowledged many ways in which it is possible to take concrete steps in the field concerned: for instance, through “soft law” instruments. The EU action in the field concerned has necessarily intertwined with the one of other regional and global organizations, such as the Council of Europe and to the system of the Hague Conference on private international law.