Sonja Grover
Biographic Data
| ID | 3674663 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sonja Grover |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sonja |
| FAMILY NAME | Grover |
| SIGNATURE | GROVER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lakehead University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 25 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Legal Case for Children’s Right to Vote in the United States
This article argues that US constitutional law supports the right to vote of children regardless of age. First, it places US law in the context of the legal, philosophical, and social scientific discussion of the issue and recent children’s suffrage movements, which suggest that barring the right to vote according to age neglects children’s democratic interests, harms societies, and is discriminatory. Second, it considers the further context of U…
Maternal tort immunity, the born alive rule and the disabled child’s right to legal capacity
This paper reconsiders the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) judgment in Dobson v. Dobson.11 Dobson v. Dobson [1999] 2 S.C.R. 753. Dobson addressed the issue of whether a born alive child should have a judicially recognised legal right to sue the mother in tort for damages based on her negligence in causing him/her permanent disabilities that originated in prenatal harms. The SCC in Dobson denied the child legal capacity in the aforementioned context…
Children’s rights to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian interventions
This introduction provides the rationale for the special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights on the topic of the children’s right to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian efforts. It summarises selected contributions relating to an international conference entitled ‘Facilitating Child Participation in International Child Protection’ that took place 5–6 October 2015 at Ryerson University in Toron…
R2P and the Syrian crisis
The proposition advanced here is that the failure of the international community to implement R2P respecting the Syrian situation is itself an ‘act of aggression' against the sovereignty of the Syrian State which derives from the sovereignty of the people and does not reside in the Assad regime or any particular Syrian regime. The framing of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and its potential implementation in any particular context, such as Sy…
Introduction to the special issue on children's and women's human rights
This special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights addresses a wide range of topics in the area of children's and women's fundamental human rights. However, the one central underlying
Child soldiers as victims of ‘genocidal forcible transfer’
This article presents an original legal analysis of children appropriated as child soldiers by state or non-state armed groups or forces perpetrating mass atrocities and/or genocide as the victims of the ‘genocidal forcible transfer of children’. A distinction is drawn between the genocidal forcible transfer of children as child soldiers versus the recruitment and use of child soldiers more generally by armed groups or forces not engaged in mass …
The Supreme Court of Canada's declining of its jurisdiction in not ordering the repatriation of a Canadian Guantanamo detainee
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) declined its jurisdiction in its 2010 ruling in Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr by not ordering the repatriation of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Ahmed Khadr. Despite finding that Khadr's deprivation of liberty at Guantanamo was not in accord with the principles of fundamental justice, and that Canada was complicit in his ongoing detention, the Court left the remedy to the Canadian federal government's discr…
A response to Bagaric and Allan's ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’
This response to Bagaric and Allan's 2006 paper ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’ (Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 2 [2006]: 257–70)1 argues, in contrast to the aforementioned authors, that ‘the concept' of dignity has substantive meaning and relevance and that ‘the phenomenon' of human dignity itself is demonstrable. Various claims made in the Bagaric and Allan paper supporting their contention that the concept of human dignity is vacuous are chal…
Child rape as a crime against humanity
This paper argues, in accord with evolving international human rights jurisprudence, that child rape is a form of torture and meets the criteria for a crime against humanity even when committed by a private individual if part of a pattern within the State. Hence, the view of the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States (USSC) in Kennedy v. Louisiana that child rape where there is no loss of life is a crime of lesser moral depravity than…
Child Soldiers’ as ‘Non-Combatants’
There is a basis in international law to regard child soldiers (those under 18) as ‘protected civilians’ or ‘non-combatants’. The legal basis for absolving child soldiers of all ages of culpability for international crimes is discussed with reference to their status as non-combatants. The Refugee Convention exclusion clause is found to be inapplicable to child soldiers of all ages notwithstanding the possibility of their having committed internat…
A Response to K.A. Bentley's ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’
Children's rights are conceptually indistinguishable from human rights generally. Hence, children's rights are universal to the extent that human rights are universal. Indeed, it is a feature of the concept of universal rights that no status, including age, precludes one from such fundamental human rights for they are inherent. Bentley's question: ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’ is a challenge to the very notion of universal child…
Children as Chattel of the State
International human rights law protects against child prostitution and commercial child sexual trafficking. However, age of sexual consent laws in most jurisdictions permit the non-commercial sexual exploitation of children. Age of consent for prostitution is generally set higher than the general age of sexual consent or is banned as is commercial child sex trafficking. Many countries do not permit marriage for children to whom adults yet have br…
Denying the Right of Trafficked Minors to be Classed as Convention Refugees
The Equality and Liberty Rights of the Destitute
Democracy and the Canadian charter notwithstanding clause
The argument is presented that the state's use of the override (s.33) clause in the Canadian Charter to infringe certain rights and freedoms is constitutional only when in accord with s.1 (where it can ‘be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’). The argument is supported by textual analysis of the Charter and reference to the intent of the framers that s.33 be used to protect democracy. The Charter thus integrates human rights,…
Pushing under-18s onto the street
Ontario's social assistance program involves an unconstitutional denial of social assistance to most applicants under 18. The exception involves those who can prove special circumstances involving withdrawal from parental control due to no fault of their own such as due to child abuse. Ontario also unconstitutionally denies protective services to 16 and 17 year olds with some exceptions. In addition, parental support obligations to minors aged 16…
Advocacy by Children as a Causal Factor in Promoting Resilience
This theoretical article suggests that advocacy by children promotes their resilience and positive selfconception. The psychological benefits of such advocacy by the child are distinguished from mental health interventions where the child is generally viewed as a passive participant and 'deficient' in critical ways. Evidence is presented concerning children who have faced great adversity to illustrate the link between advocacy by children and res…
On Recognizing Children's Universal Rights
On Recognizing Children’s Universal Rights: What Needs to Change in the Convention on the Rights of the Child SONJA GROVER This paper examines the limiting language in article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its accompanying optional protocol and how that language serves to circumscribe the universal rights of the child. This limiting language exempts States Parties from the obligations of the CRC where the age o…
Oppression of children intellectualized as free expression under the Canadian Charter
Nowhere to turn
Why Won't They Listen to Us
This article discusses the need for authentic social research with children given the fact that increasingly such research is being relied on to inform social policy which profoundly affects the lives of children. Authentic research is operationalized in this article as that research which gives power and voice to child research participants and which provides insights into their subjective world. Such research allows the children to a degree to …
Social Research in the Advancement of Children's Rights
On the Limits of Parental Proxy Consent
Why aren't these youngsters in school? Meeting Canada's Charter obligations to disadvantaged adolescents
The Application of Prior Knowledge to the Interpretation of Text
This study examines the relationship between the reader's prior knowledge and the accuracy of his visual analysis of the text. Seventy-eight semantically precued male and female undergraduates read sentences more accurately than did syntactically cued or noncued Ss, these sentences being presented tachistoscopically in a visually confusing background. Semantically precued Ss analyzed the text more critically than did Ss in the remaining groups as…
Why Won't They Listen to Us
This article discusses the need for authentic social research with children given the fact that increasingly such research is being relied on to inform social policy which profoundly affects the lives of children. Authentic research is operationalized in this article as that research which gives power and voice to child research participants and which provides insights into their subjective world. Such research allows the children to a degree to …
Children’s rights to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian interventions
This introduction provides the rationale for the special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights on the topic of the children’s right to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian efforts. It summarises selected contributions relating to an international conference entitled ‘Facilitating Child Participation in International Child Protection’ that took place 5–6 October 2015 at Ryerson University in Toron…
Why aren't these youngsters in school? Meeting Canada's Charter obligations to disadvantaged adolescents
A Response to K.A. Bentley's ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’
Children's rights are conceptually indistinguishable from human rights generally. Hence, children's rights are universal to the extent that human rights are universal. Indeed, it is a feature of the concept of universal rights that no status, including age, precludes one from such fundamental human rights for they are inherent. Bentley's question: ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’ is a challenge to the very notion of universal child…
R2P and the Syrian crisis
The proposition advanced here is that the failure of the international community to implement R2P respecting the Syrian situation is itself an ‘act of aggression' against the sovereignty of the Syrian State which derives from the sovereignty of the people and does not reside in the Assad regime or any particular Syrian regime. The framing of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and its potential implementation in any particular context, such as Sy…
Democracy and the Canadian charter notwithstanding clause
The argument is presented that the state's use of the override (s.33) clause in the Canadian Charter to infringe certain rights and freedoms is constitutional only when in accord with s.1 (where it can ‘be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’). The argument is supported by textual analysis of the Charter and reference to the intent of the framers that s.33 be used to protect democracy. The Charter thus integrates human rights,…
Advocacy by Children as a Causal Factor in Promoting Resilience
This theoretical article suggests that advocacy by children promotes their resilience and positive selfconception. The psychological benefits of such advocacy by the child are distinguished from mental health interventions where the child is generally viewed as a passive participant and 'deficient' in critical ways. Evidence is presented concerning children who have faced great adversity to illustrate the link between advocacy by children and res…
Child soldiers as victims of ‘genocidal forcible transfer’
This article presents an original legal analysis of children appropriated as child soldiers by state or non-state armed groups or forces perpetrating mass atrocities and/or genocide as the victims of the ‘genocidal forcible transfer of children’. A distinction is drawn between the genocidal forcible transfer of children as child soldiers versus the recruitment and use of child soldiers more generally by armed groups or forces not engaged in mass …
A response to Bagaric and Allan's ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’
This response to Bagaric and Allan's 2006 paper ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’ (Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 2 [2006]: 257–70)1 argues, in contrast to the aforementioned authors, that ‘the concept' of dignity has substantive meaning and relevance and that ‘the phenomenon' of human dignity itself is demonstrable. Various claims made in the Bagaric and Allan paper supporting their contention that the concept of human dignity is vacuous are chal…
On Recognizing Children's Universal Rights
On Recognizing Children’s Universal Rights: What Needs to Change in the Convention on the Rights of the Child SONJA GROVER This paper examines the limiting language in article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its accompanying optional protocol and how that language serves to circumscribe the universal rights of the child. This limiting language exempts States Parties from the obligations of the CRC where the age o…
On the Limits of Parental Proxy Consent
The Application of Prior Knowledge to the Interpretation of Text
This study examines the relationship between the reader's prior knowledge and the accuracy of his visual analysis of the text. Seventy-eight semantically precued male and female undergraduates read sentences more accurately than did syntactically cued or noncued Ss, these sentences being presented tachistoscopically in a visually confusing background. Semantically precued Ss analyzed the text more critically than did Ss in the remaining groups as…
Why aren't these youngsters in school? Meeting Canada's Charter obligations to disadvantaged adolescents
Social Research in the Advancement of Children's Rights
On the Limits of Parental Proxy Consent
On Recognizing Children's Universal Rights
On Recognizing Children’s Universal Rights: What Needs to Change in the Convention on the Rights of the Child SONJA GROVER This paper examines the limiting language in article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its accompanying optional protocol and how that language serves to circumscribe the universal rights of the child. This limiting language exempts States Parties from the obligations of the CRC where the age o…
Oppression of children intellectualized as free expression under the Canadian Charter
Nowhere to turn
Why Won't They Listen to Us
This article discusses the need for authentic social research with children given the fact that increasingly such research is being relied on to inform social policy which profoundly affects the lives of children. Authentic research is operationalized in this article as that research which gives power and voice to child research participants and which provides insights into their subjective world. Such research allows the children to a degree to …
The Equality and Liberty Rights of the Destitute
Democracy and the Canadian charter notwithstanding clause
The argument is presented that the state's use of the override (s.33) clause in the Canadian Charter to infringe certain rights and freedoms is constitutional only when in accord with s.1 (where it can ‘be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’). The argument is supported by textual analysis of the Charter and reference to the intent of the framers that s.33 be used to protect democracy. The Charter thus integrates human rights,…
Pushing under-18s onto the street
Ontario's social assistance program involves an unconstitutional denial of social assistance to most applicants under 18. The exception involves those who can prove special circumstances involving withdrawal from parental control due to no fault of their own such as due to child abuse. Ontario also unconstitutionally denies protective services to 16 and 17 year olds with some exceptions. In addition, parental support obligations to minors aged 16…
Advocacy by Children as a Causal Factor in Promoting Resilience
This theoretical article suggests that advocacy by children promotes their resilience and positive selfconception. The psychological benefits of such advocacy by the child are distinguished from mental health interventions where the child is generally viewed as a passive participant and 'deficient' in critical ways. Evidence is presented concerning children who have faced great adversity to illustrate the link between advocacy by children and res…
Denying the Right of Trafficked Minors to be Classed as Convention Refugees
A Response to K.A. Bentley's ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’
Children's rights are conceptually indistinguishable from human rights generally. Hence, children's rights are universal to the extent that human rights are universal. Indeed, it is a feature of the concept of universal rights that no status, including age, precludes one from such fundamental human rights for they are inherent. Bentley's question: ‘Can There Be Any Universal Children's Rights?’ is a challenge to the very notion of universal child…
Children as Chattel of the State
International human rights law protects against child prostitution and commercial child sexual trafficking. However, age of sexual consent laws in most jurisdictions permit the non-commercial sexual exploitation of children. Age of consent for prostitution is generally set higher than the general age of sexual consent or is banned as is commercial child sex trafficking. Many countries do not permit marriage for children to whom adults yet have br…
Child Soldiers’ as ‘Non-Combatants’
There is a basis in international law to regard child soldiers (those under 18) as ‘protected civilians’ or ‘non-combatants’. The legal basis for absolving child soldiers of all ages of culpability for international crimes is discussed with reference to their status as non-combatants. The Refugee Convention exclusion clause is found to be inapplicable to child soldiers of all ages notwithstanding the possibility of their having committed internat…
A response to Bagaric and Allan's ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’
This response to Bagaric and Allan's 2006 paper ‘The Vacuous Concept of Dignity’ (Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 2 [2006]: 257–70)1 argues, in contrast to the aforementioned authors, that ‘the concept' of dignity has substantive meaning and relevance and that ‘the phenomenon' of human dignity itself is demonstrable. Various claims made in the Bagaric and Allan paper supporting their contention that the concept of human dignity is vacuous are chal…
Child rape as a crime against humanity
This paper argues, in accord with evolving international human rights jurisprudence, that child rape is a form of torture and meets the criteria for a crime against humanity even when committed by a private individual if part of a pattern within the State. Hence, the view of the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States (USSC) in Kennedy v. Louisiana that child rape where there is no loss of life is a crime of lesser moral depravity than…
The Supreme Court of Canada's declining of its jurisdiction in not ordering the repatriation of a Canadian Guantanamo detainee
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) declined its jurisdiction in its 2010 ruling in Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr by not ordering the repatriation of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Ahmed Khadr. Despite finding that Khadr's deprivation of liberty at Guantanamo was not in accord with the principles of fundamental justice, and that Canada was complicit in his ongoing detention, the Court left the remedy to the Canadian federal government's discr…
Child soldiers as victims of ‘genocidal forcible transfer’
This article presents an original legal analysis of children appropriated as child soldiers by state or non-state armed groups or forces perpetrating mass atrocities and/or genocide as the victims of the ‘genocidal forcible transfer of children’. A distinction is drawn between the genocidal forcible transfer of children as child soldiers versus the recruitment and use of child soldiers more generally by armed groups or forces not engaged in mass …
Introduction to the special issue on children's and women's human rights
This special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights addresses a wide range of topics in the area of children's and women's fundamental human rights. However, the one central underlying
R2P and the Syrian crisis
The proposition advanced here is that the failure of the international community to implement R2P respecting the Syrian situation is itself an ‘act of aggression' against the sovereignty of the Syrian State which derives from the sovereignty of the people and does not reside in the Assad regime or any particular Syrian regime. The framing of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and its potential implementation in any particular context, such as Sy…
Children’s rights to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian interventions
This introduction provides the rationale for the special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights on the topic of the children’s right to participation and protection in international development and humanitarian efforts. It summarises selected contributions relating to an international conference entitled ‘Facilitating Child Participation in International Child Protection’ that took place 5–6 October 2015 at Ryerson University in Toron…
Maternal tort immunity, the born alive rule and the disabled child’s right to legal capacity
This paper reconsiders the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) judgment in Dobson v. Dobson.11 Dobson v. Dobson [1999] 2 S.C.R. 753. Dobson addressed the issue of whether a born alive child should have a judicially recognised legal right to sue the mother in tort for damages based on her negligence in causing him/her permanent disabilities that originated in prenatal harms. The SCC in Dobson denied the child legal capacity in the aforementioned context…
The Legal Case for Children’s Right to Vote in the United States
This article argues that US constitutional law supports the right to vote of children regardless of age. First, it places US law in the context of the legal, philosophical, and social scientific discussion of the issue and recent children’s suffrage movements, which suggest that barring the right to vote according to age neglects children’s democratic interests, harms societies, and is discriminatory. Second, it considers the further context of U…
Political science (23 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Human rights (12 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Charter (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Criminology (5 works)