It is a pleasure and an honour for me to participate in this activity of special significance related to making enforceable –thus, real- the rights of the children in the world, issue that concerns the future of humankind.

This Convention of judges, gathered to discuss this serious topic, reveals the problem about the divorce between law and reality, the contradiction of having, on one hand, an impacting list of rights in national and international laws, and, on the other hand, a world where the injustice, inequity, violence and abuse continue as if there were no rules.

This is a problem that affects and involves us all, every man and woman, as well as the institutions created for this purpose, the States and the International community. Nobody is exempted to play a role in the effective protection of these rights, and we all must be aware of that and assume our task and responsibility.

All national and international systems incorporate human rights and of course include the rights of children in general and in particular laws.

In my country, Peru , we have several especial laws, an entire Child and Adolescent Code, as well as some articles in the Constitution dedicated to them.

In the International sphere, for the protection of children's dignity, equality and basic human rights, the first initiative -the global children's rights- was taken in 1924. In 1979, 55 years later, the International Year of Child was declared.

In november 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was approved, being the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights, having considered that children needed a special convention due to their particular need of care and protection.

Children all over the world have, as minimum, the right to survival, to a full development, to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation, and to fully participate in family, cultural and social life.

By agreeing to respect the Convention terms, national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community. Thus, States parties to the Convention must develop and undertake all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child.

Of course, declarations are not enough, because reality may play a different game.

We know there is no peace in the world. We are aware that war has different faces, so let's not get deceived by apparent peace, just because formally there is no war. Benjamin Franklin said that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace. In fact, if peace involves more than formal peace, and includes real peace then surely there is not such thing as a bad peace; if not, if peace is not an integral situation -that includes respect for human rights-, then it is an unreal peace, a fake peace, that can be regarded as a “bad peace” .

I n this scenario, the phrase of Tacitus is more realistic: "a bad peace is even worse than war."

International terrorism has shaken the world; environmental degradation and greenhouse gases resulting in global warming and climate change jeopardizes the present and future existence of all people.

All around the world too many children under the age of five die each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases; have been killed in war, are handicapped, homeless, lost their parents or were separated from them; are forced to work under often fatal conditions; also, too many will never ever begin school. Children are used in sex traffic, in organ traffic, in slave traffic, in drug traffic, throughout the world, and these facts are not secret for anybody.

So we must be conscious that there is no use in just talking about rights, but instead about how to enforce them.

Peace is, therefore, a concept linked to human dignity. Every situation where human dignity is wounded or absent implies that there is no peace. In this sense, yes, there is no such thing as bad peace. Muste said, "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."; and so we can say that the only way to peace is through respect of human dignity.

It is not possible to ensure human dignity if we stay still before unfair situations. And in the current world no justice can be reached if law is not enforceable.

How to enforce law? I think there are two levels: inside our States, and beyond them.

Regarding the second level, that is, beyond our States, we may say that i nternational law has proved to be insufficient, because we do not live in peace and there are no instruments to change that reality; therefore, international law, as it is, makes us believe we have an international system and that justice can be reached, but it is a mirage.

It is said that international law needs to be replaced by enforceable world law plus the realization that individuals must be held accountable: the creation of the International Criminal Court and the European Union would show that things are moving in that direction. So the e nforcement of world law would imply that a legitimate sovereignty is one that democratically includes all of humanity. This is why nowadays the concept of a constitutional global democracy, towards a democratic world federation, is spreading and becoming strong.

An explanation for this is that nowadays nationalism is no longer a unifying force for humanity, in a world where communications and economies are global, and also where the threat to ecology and criminality are developing in global levels. But human dignity has not been politically installed in a global level, so global democracy is a concept that involves effective justice beyond country borders, a sort of world federation, which is consistent with fairness and justice for all.

In other words, if the basic structure of our global community is changed, that is, if the United Nations -today an international organism with a feeble power to enforce the international conventions- is transformed into an effective world democracy, a federation of all nations, the rule of enforceable global law might be a reality, and maybe that will lead us to real peace in the world, because the absence of enforceable global law creates a fertile medium for war, ecological destruction, inequity, and other planetary woes.

This idea may remind us of that very popular song of John Lennon: imagine :

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

It is remarkable that 30 years later, in 1999, Walter Cronkite, one of the most representative authors of these ideas, insisted about the importance of working towards having a world system governed by a democratic United Nations federation, and recalled that those who thought this way were called impractical dreamers.

However, I think that even if we judges may be able to contribute -in a limited way- to develop the political shape of the world, our proper role is not it. Our principal role is to enforce the laws by using all the legal weapons that we have in our systems (national and international).

Nowadays, the role of the judge in many countries or States is placed inside the idea of the judicial activism, that implies that judges are real guarantors of fundamental rights, and not just a voice that repeats the law in a literally way.

In Peru , my country, this is the role that our system has conferred to the judiciary. The judge must always prefer the constitution spirit whenever he/she finds that the law is against it; in my country every judge is enabled to do that.

And as supra national levels (international agreements, conventions and treaties, particularly those involving human rights) are in the same level as the Constitution, judges are entitled to use all the instruments in the system to enforce the law, local and world law.

The judge has a participative role in the process (or trial), he/she is the director of the process, and can bring, for example, additional proofs (not facts: the facts are brought to the process by the litigants or parties) in order to conclude the investigation of the truth, and find out what really happened in that case, so that the judge can make a fair decision that will legitimate the judicial system.

Also, the effectiveness of justice is the key of the new vision of the judiciary. Ineffective decisions are, in reality, no decisions at all: there is no justice in them. It has a parallelism with unenforceable laws. It means that the system is a fiction, because what is needed is not achieved, thus, society doesn't get what urgently claims for.

This is why this paradigm shift in the judiciary (effectiveness of justice and judge as guarantor of human rights) leads the development of procedural law, putting the judge in a leading role in the process (director of the process or trial) and therefore contributing to social peace in justice, so we can say that the social role of the judge goes beyond the specific case.

Judges must be conscious of their role, and know that they are enabled to enforce the laws, which includes international law. So the Convention on the Rights of the Child must not be a mere referential chart of rights, but a real imperative law.

Also, the Judicial System and the Administration must work together in order to accomplish the real peace. And certainly, Judicial cooperation among States can play an essencial role to remove obstacles from incompatibilities between the various judicial and administrative systems In the pursuit of these goals.

A very important aspect to take into account is that the decisions of the International Court of Justice must be executed and not regarded as non enforceable recommendations, because it proves not to be effective, so it is not real in the long term. In Peru the decisions of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights ( Costa Rica ) are part of the jurisprudence that we regard, so they are effectively part of our system.

Judges in Peru are working hard to adapt efficiently to these regulations and to make interpretations of the law according to the human rights declarations, especially in areas related to children rights and environmental issues, so in their decisions we can find different ways to enforce (and therefore make real) the rights of the children, and make the Government, as well as particulars, respect and follow their directions.

The only way to peace is through peace itself, and no peace is conceived without respect of human dignity. Our children and the children to be born must live in a world where the enforcement of the world law assures them a life based on respect. And this is an obligation that concerns us all.

Thank you very much and God bless you.