viii Official Report 6 September 2018, Col 17
Bruce Adamson, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland drew attention to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“Children are children up to the age of 18 and the question should not be how to justify raising the age from eight to 12, but how we justify treating children under 18 in a criminal manner. There may well be justifications, but the starting point for our discussions needs to be 18 and we need to be looking at 14 or 16 as the norm, internationally.”ixOfficial Report, 27 September 2018, Col 23
Age of criminal responsibility international trends
Comparing progress internationally, Bruce Adamson, observed that “The dominant international trend in MACRs has been upwards.