The position of juvenile offenders in the international legal perspective

Juveniles represent a special age category of delinquents. Their legal position is largely conditioned by the specificities of their psychophysical development. Therefore, one should not be surprised the international community being resolved to completely regulate the position of juveniles by using the relevant international and European legal instruments. Some authors are more inclined to claim that juveniles constitute an 'overly regulated area' among international legal regulations. This implies a great number of legal instruments of both universal and regional validity. Although indisputably numerous, a large number of legal instruments contribute to the unification of the juvenile status in most countries in the world. They have, through the system of direct or indirect implementation, brought both general and specific international and regional legal instruments into their system of juvenile criminal and family law. A general approach to the subject matter of the juveniles' legal position requires a consideration of a large number of valid international instruments. This undertaking involves the separation of a number of well-known and recognized instruments and their adequate classification. In this sense, the author has singled out those instruments achieving the strongest effects in the area of criminal law regulations of the position of the minors. In order to facilitate their presentation, a specific methodological approach has been used, starting from the relevant universal legal instruments.