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Children below a certain age are too young to be held responsible for breaking the law. There is wide consensus about this principle, which is spelled out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and in other international standards, such as the Beijing Rules for juvenile justice. The Convention calls for nations to establish a minimum age “below which children shall be presumed not to have the capacity to infringe the penal law”. And since the beginning of this year (2008) it sets 12 as the minimum age, explicitly. Worldwide, though, there is continuing debate about the appropriate age. This debate too often tends to arise when exceptional cases involving children who have committed heinous offences are given prominent coverage by the media. Sometimes this has far-reaching consequences.