Provides insights into a lively field of international human rights politics the protection of children and their rights by looking at the negotiations leading to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Introduction Power and Exclusion in Discourse Approaches to International Relations Discursive Transformation and the Role of Institutions Global Childhood An Essentially Uncontested Concept? Origins of the?Drafting of the?UN?Convention on the Rights of the Child Discursive Practices?Within?the UN and the Transformation of?a Global Childhood Paradigm Exclusionary Facets of the Social Ebvironment and?their Effects on the New?Image of Childhood Conclusion - Future Prospects for an Analysis of Norm Change through DiscourseANNA HOLZSCHEITER is a Lecturer at the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy Studies at Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. She has been involved in several consultancies with UNICEF and has written a Commentary on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 20 Children Without Parental Care together with Nigel Cantwell.