Configurations institutionnelles de la protection de l’enfance: regards croisés de l’Afrique, de l’Europe et de l’Amérique du Nord

Cet article porte sur l’analyse de trois configurations institutionnelles de la protection de l’enfance : celle en place au Burkina Faso, en Belgique et au Québec. Pour chaque configuration, le texte explore les transformations qui ont marqué le passage de la prise en charge exclusive de l’enfant par la famille vers la présence accrue de l’État et la manière dont la Convention internationale des droits de l’enfant de 1989 a influencé ce passage. Il montre, au travers d’une lecture historique, que l’implication de l’État dans la protection des enfants a connu des formes et des modalités variables selon le temps et l’espace. L’approche actuelle en matière de protection de l’enfance au Nord et au Sud, approche largement inspirée de la perspective des droits, représente un défi tant pour les intervenants que pour les familles, car son application dépend à fois des ressources disponibles pour aider les enfants et les familles en difficulté, de la capacité d’action des institutions publiques et de l’efficacité des interventions. This article deals with the analysis of three institutional configurations of child protection: those in Burkina Faso, in Belgium, and in Québec. With respect to each configuration, the text explores the changes from situations in which the family had sole control of the child to those where the State played a greater role, and the manner in which the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child has affected such changes. It shows, through a reading of history, that the involvement of the State in child protection has gone through different forms and stages over time and space. The current strategies as regards child protection in the North and in the South—an approach that is largely subject to a legal perspective—represent a challenge both for intervenors and for families, since their application depends on the resources available for helping children and families in difficulty, on the ability of the public institutions to intervene, and on the efficiency of such interventions.

The Bureau International des Poids et Mesures: establishing standards in the physical sciences

In a vault on the outskirts of Paris, a cylinder of platinum-iridium sits in a safe under three layers of glass. It is the kilogram, kept by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), which is the international home of metrology. Metrology is the science of measurement, and it is of fundamental importance to us all. It is essential for trade, commerce, navigation, transport, communication, surveying, engineering, and construction. It is essential for medical diagnosis and treatment, health and safety, food and consumer protection, and for preserving the environment—e.g., measuring ozone in the atmosphere. Many of these applications are of particular relevance to chemistry and thus to IUPAC. In all these activities we need to make measurements reliably—to an appropriate and known level of uncertainty. The financial implications of metrology are enormous. In the United States, for example, some 15% of the gross domestic product is spent on healthcare, involving reliable quantitative measurements for both diagnosis and treatment.