Frequently asked
Common questions about the standard
What does "best interest of the child" actually mean?
It's the legal standard set out in Article 3 of the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, requiring that a
child's best interests be "a primary consideration" in
all actions concerning them. The Convention does not
define the phrase. UN guidance says it has to be
assessed case by case — which is exactly why the same
phrase can justify opposite decisions in near-identical
situations.
Is it legally binding?
Yes, in the 196 countries that have ratified the
Convention, and in most national family and child
protection law. How much it actually constrains a given
decision depends heavily on the judge, panel, or agency
applying it, precisely because the term itself is left
undefined.
Can AI decide what's in a child's best interest?
UNICEF's own guidance is explicit that when an AI system
informs a decision affecting a child, the final decision
must still be made by a human who can be held
accountable for it — not the score or the flag itself.
That requirement exists precisely because
risk-assessment tools trained on historical case data
can carry forward the same blind spots that already
existed in how harm was recorded.
What is Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child?
Article 12 gives a child capable of forming their own
views the right to express them freely in all matters
affecting them, including custody hearings and care
reviews, with those views weighed according to the
child's age and maturity. In practice, a child's view is
often gathered in advance and summarized in a written
report rather than heard directly in the room where the
decision gets made.
What is Article 9, on separation from parents?
Article 9 says a child shouldn't be separated from their
parents against their will unless authorities, subject
to judicial review, determine it's necessary for the
child's best interest — and that a child separated from
a parent keeps the right to maintain contact with both,
unless that itself would be contrary to their best
interest. In practice, the ongoing part — the maintained
contact, the periodic review — gets far less resourcing
than the original decision.
Has the United States ratified the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child?
No. The US signed it in 1995 but has never ratified it,
and remains the only UN member state that hasn't.
Signing signaled an intention to eventually ratify — it
doesn't make the Convention binding domestic law the way
it is in the 196 countries that have ratified it.
What happened in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal?
A Dutch government algorithm flagged thousands of
families for childcare-benefit fraud based on learned
patterns rather than individual evidence,
disproportionately targeting families with dual
nationality. Families were ordered to repay benefits in
full with little ability to challenge it, many were
financially ruined, and over a thousand children were
taken into foster care as a result. The scandal brought
down the Dutch government in 2021.
Can an AI companion chatbot substitute for therapy?
The evidence so far says no. UNICEF's guidance names an
"empathy gap" — the difference between a chatbot
sounding understood and a child actually being
understood — and research has documented
engagement-driven emotional-manipulation patterns in
companion apps. UNICEF's guidance requires chatbots to
disclose they aren't human and avoid being designed to
create emotional dependency in children.
Where can I watch the full series?
New long-form and short videos are published weekly on
YouTube, @childbestinterest. Written companion essays are published here as the
series continues.
