International Human Rights of Children

Ursula Kilkelly is Professor of Law at the School of Law, University College Cork in Ireland. Over a 20 year career Ursula has researched the area of international children’s rights law, exploring the potential of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights to realise the rights of children in various areas. Ursula has published in international peer reviewed journals and prestigious collections and undertaken commissioned research for international bodies like the Council of Europe and UNICEF on children’s rights issues including youth justice and detention, rights based advocacy and the legal implementation of the UNCRC. Her work directly informs law and policy reform at a national and European level and she works collaboratively across jurisdictions with multiple non-governmental and legal organisations. She is currently co-editor of Youth Justice, An International Journal. At UCC, Ursula directs the Child Law Clinic which provides student-led legal research services for those who seek to develop law and policy from a children’s rights perspective and in 2018, she launched the Centre for Children’s Rights and Family Law with colleagues in the School of Law. Ursula teaches International Children’s Rights Law and Juvenile Justice on the LLM in Children’s Rights and Family Law and welcomes PhD students in all areas of children’s rights.

Ton Liefaard is Full Professor of Children’s Rights and holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at Leiden Law School, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is the director of the Master of Law’s Programme (LL.M) Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights and of Leiden University’s summer school programme Frontiers of Children’s Rights. He teaches and publishes widely on the meaning of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and related international, regional and domestic children’s rights standards for specific issues, including juvenile justice, deprivation of liberty of children, children’s access to justice, child friendly justice and violence against children. He supervises PhD students from across the globe and he regularly works as a consultant and researcher for international organizations, including UNICEF, the Council of Europe and the European Union. He also serves as a substitute Justice of the Court of Appeal in The Hague and as a member of the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles (Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming), a permanent advisory body to the Government of The Netherlands. He used to be a member of Dutch Government Committee on the Reassessment of Parenthood (Staatscommissie Herijking Ouderschap). Ton Liefaard holds a Master and a PhD in law from the VU University Amsterdam.