A move away from the traditional child-parent-state model of children’s rights in favour of a four-party model which includes indigenous communities can be identified in international legal discourse. The basis for this phenomenon can be found in arguments for the preservation of indigenous culture. However, whether this argument is adequate for such a fundamental change in the conceptualisation of children’s rights is questionable. This article discusses various legal conceptualisations of children’s rights in academic literature and compares these with sociological theories of children’s development. It identifies an emerging four-party model of children’s rights in international legal discourse, and points to practical problems of implementation and weak philosophical justifications. The article concludes that a four-party model based on sociological theories of children’s development would assist in overcoming these weaknesses, and allow the incorporation of other social groupings into conceptualisations of children’s rights.