International Childrenâs Rights, a Complex Field of Law
This comprehensive collection of international childrenâs rights instruments is an essential and fully accessible resource for students, researchers and professionals in the field of childrenâs human rights. The collection supplements the several academic handbooks on childrenâs rights studies and on international childrenâs rights law that have been published during the recent years (see below for a selection of some of the most important handbooks and reference works). Over the years, the international legal framework of childrenâs rights has developed into a complex set of different legal sources that regulate the protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of children. The complexity of the framework results from the co-existence of and interaction between United Nations treaties and resolutions, regional human rights instruments, including treaties, recommendations, resolutions and guidelines, and legal instruments in adjacent fields of international law, including private and public international law. For students, researchers, and professionals, it is critical to have a comprehensive overview of these sources of law relevant to childrenâs rights and to have easy access to them. This collection, which is the result of a collaboration between two well-established Masterâs programmes in childrenâs rights, aims to provide for this.
University of Geneva â Master of Advanced Studies in Childrenâs Rights
The Master of Advanced Studies in Childrenâs Rights (mcr) is a part-time international and interdisciplinary postgraduate programme on childrenâs rights. The programme is designed for professionals who work within the childrenâs rights field, and it offers an advanced interdisciplinary approach to the study of childrenâs rights. The mcr takes advantage of its geographical location and academic context, by including customized visits to Geneva-based international organizations and through the active participation of international rewarded scholars and experts coming from all over the world.
The Leiden Advanced ll.m. programme is a small-scale, highly advanced study programme for (post)graduate students from all over the world. Students participate in an international classroom, and are offered in-depth specialization in the rights and interests of children from a legal perspective. Students learn what childrenâs rights mean and how to promote and protect the rights of children around the world, in light of the global challenges of today and tomorrow. Moreover, students will actively engage with the many networks Leiden Law School and Leiden University have to offer.
Content of the Collection
The collection consists of seven sections organised thematically. Each section includes international and/or regional legal documents, both hard and soft law instruments. The themes as well as the instruments were carefully selected by the editorial team and include two sections with general childrenâs rights and human rights instruments respectively, followed by international and regional instruments on the issues of asylum, migration and trafficking, violence and exploitation, child labour, children in the justice system and private international law.
It was unavoidable to be selective and to make choices, some of which were difficult. Consequently, the collection does not provide an exhaustive collection of instruments. Certain areas could not be covered entirely or not at all, which explains why, for example, there are no special sections on international humanitarian law or legal instruments in relation to digital technologies. As far as the regional instruments are concerned, the collectionâs primary focus is on the Inter-American, European and African regional human rights systems. Other regions were not included, at the cost of, for example, the Southeast Asian region, where childrenâs rights standard-setting has taken place under the auspice of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean). Moreover, General Comments were not included because these can easily be found on the website of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
The collection reveals the rich nature and diverse range of topics governed by international childrenâs rights law. The effective protection of childrenâs rights will benefit from the acknowledgement that matters of childrenâs rights are increasingly regulated at the international and regional levels. The complex nature of international childrenâs rights law requires the use of various legal sources in close connection with each other. The editors hope that this collection will assist students, researchers and professionals in studying and using international childrenâs rights in a comprehensive and effective manner, which, mindful of Article 41 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, will ultimately be conducive to the realisation of the rights of the child.
Acknowledgements
The editors express their gratitude to Brill | Nijhoff publishers for its willingness to publish this collection and for supporting the publishing process. In addition, the editors would like to thank Mike Sikkink, student-assistant at the Department of Child Law of Leiden University, for his support in preparing the manuscript.
Selection of Recently Published Handbooks and Commentaries on Childrenâs Rights
Kilkelly, U., &Liefaard, T. (2020). International Human Rights of Children. Springer Nature.
Ruck, M. D.,Peterson-Badali, M., &Freeman, M. (2016). Handbook of Childrenâs Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives .Taylor & Francis.
Tobin, J. (2019). The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A commentary. Oxford University Press.
Todres, J., &King, S. M. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Childrenâs Rights Law .Oxford University Press.
Vaghri, Z.,Zermatten, J.,Lansdown, G., &Ruggiero, R. (2022). Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Attributes .Springer Nature.
Vandenhole, W.,Desmet, E.,Reynaert, D., &Lembrechts, S. (2015). Routledge International Handbook of Childrenâs Rights Studies .Routledge.
Vandenhole, W.,Türkelli, G. E., &Lembrechts, S. (2019). Childrenâs Rights: A Commentary on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Its Protocols .Edward Elgar Publishing.