The UN Committee rejected reasonable chastisement defenses entirely
Evidence
The authoritative interpretive statement of the Committee on the Rights of the Child — the treaty body responsible for monitoring implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child — on States Parties’ obligations regarding corporal punishment. Adopted at the Committee’s 42nd session in January 2006, General Comment No. 8 defines corporal punishment as “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light,” characterizes all such punishment as “invariably degrading,” and concludes without qualification that “reasonable chastisement” and equivalent defenses in domestic law are incompatible with the Convention. … It is the single most cited international legal document in the prohibition literature, referenced in every subsequent national legislative debate, every Universal Periodic Review recommendation, and every professional society position statement on corporal punishment from 2006 onward. — , The Rod and the Child, 10881
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the authoritative legal standard for corporal punishment and establishes ‘invariably degrading’ as the international norm.