THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD PRINCIPLE AS AN INDEPENDENT SOURCE OF INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the best interests principle codified in Article 3 in particular, is playing an increasingly significant role in decisions involving the admission or removal of a child from a host State. This article examines the extent to which the best interest principle may provide an independent source of international protection. That protection may, for instance, proscribe the removal of a child from a host State notwithstanding that the child is ineligible for protection as a refugee or protection under the more traditional non-refoulement obligations in international human rights law.