As part of the Politics in International Law series, Dr Noam Peleg (Faculty of Law, UNSW) looks at how child development and its relationship with the right to development of children have been understood in international children's rights law. Dr Peleg argues that any conceptions of childhood that focus either on children's future as adults, or on children's lives in the present, overlook the hybridity of children's lived experiences and results in a narrow, and insufficient conceptualization of the right to development of children. Thus, a move forward, towards a more comprehensive understanding of child development, should offer greater respect for children's agency and human dignity and their right to participate in decision concerning their own development.