‘Deliberating the Rights of the Child’: The inclusion of children in deliberative democracy and some insights from Israel

Dspite increasing attention to children’s role in public decision-making processes and deliberations, children today remain under-represented, even excluded, from deliberative processes. The chapter explores the case for including children in constitution-making, legislative, and national policy-related deliberative processes. It does so by introducing a new perspective, linking the aims and values relating to deliberative democracy with the child rights-based approach on children and deliberative democracy, anchored in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The chapter examines whether democratic and child rights-based justifications for including children in deliberation outweigh objections and concerns in this regard. Furthermore, the chapter offers a spotlight on children’s involvement in deliberative democracy in Israel. It analyses two recent cases in which children participated in policy-related deliberative processes at the national level and identifies some insights on children’s participation in deliberation in Israel, and potentially, beyond.