The Role of Prof. Tadeusz Smyczyński as a Drafter of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Legal Studies, 13, 1 (2024) 5–22

DOI: 10.47745/AUSLEG.2024.13.1.01

Abstract. The author describes the role played in the creation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by Prof. Tadeusz Smyczyński, a Polish lawyer who all his life was associated with the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, but whose merits are not widely known even in Poland. The author, who is a disciple of Prof. Smyczyński, describes the latter’s career, his enormous scientific achievements (especially in the area of family law), and the role of his teachers, who were the outstanding civilists profs. Alfred Ohanowicz and Zbigniew Radwański. In describing Prof. Smyczyński’s work on the draft United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the author also considers the specific socio-political context of the 1970s and 1980s. The specific characteristics of doing research and scientific work in Poland over more than half a century before and after the 1989 regime change are also addressed. Particular attention is paid to the main topics of the work on the draft Convention, including debates on the two key issues of the meaning of child (Who may be considered a child? Who do the rights contained in the Convention concern?) and the parent– child relationship (What role should be assigned to the state? How active should it be in relation to the family and the child?). For Prof. Smyczyński, these were the most important issues on which he focused, and they also had a significant impact on the content of the formulations adopted in the Convention. They are still fundamental, and the dispute over the protection of the lives of unborn children and the legal position of parents is currently gaining momentum. At the end, the author presents Prof. Smyczyński’s views on the Convention and its role as expressed in a conversation they had in the fall of 2023. On the one hand, Prof. Smyczyński feels satisfied with the results of his erstwhile work, but, on the other, regrets that the world is moving in the wrong direction on the issues dearest to him.

Keywords: Tadeusz Smyczyński, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, child, family, legislation