A study motivated by opening for signatories of the Third Optional Protocol for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and possible ramifications individual complaints procedure will have for the definition of a child. As there is no exact moment when life commences according to the CRC, the initial hypothesis of the work is that a definition provided nationally to the beginning of life will be challenged internationally. By analysing various responses provided by national, regional and international tribunals, the paper seeks to highlight the multifarious answers to this foundational question of legal personhood.

The analysis reveals an innate incoherence in the legal response to the seemingly unitary question of life's commencement. True to the instability of the international law recognised in much of the international legal scholarship, the paper dissects the legal response through the lenses of human dignity and of autonomy. It is argued that framing of the question as either private or public throughly influences the legal response to subjects that are at the surface level similar (e.g. cryopreserved embryos and stem cell lines).