Course requirements
Master degree.
Course information
The enforcement and monitoring of international children’s rights has increasingly become complex due to the high number of relevant international, regional and national children’s rights standards and the level of sophistication of the content of these standards affecting different areas of law. In addition, the entire system of reporting about children’s rights implementation and of remedying children’s rights violations has become more complicated, including for children themselves, due the wide variety of judicial bodies (i.e. regional human rights courts), treaty bodies (i.e. monitoring bodies with competence to receive individual communications) and other reporting and monitoring mechanisms at the international, regional and national level (e.g. Special Rapporteurs and Representatives on different children’s rights issues, Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (under OPCAT) and European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT)) and so forth). Additionally, in 2014, the 3rd Optional Protocol to UN Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force, which provides children with the right to file individual communications to the Committee on the Rights of the Child alleging violation of their rights, as well as opening the option of inquiries into grave and systematic violations of children's rights.
Consequently, the enforcement and monitoring of children’s rights requires in-depth and state of the art knowledge of the implications of International Children’s Rights Law as well as of the role, functioning, ethics/responsibilities and interaction of relevant enforcement mechanisms. In addition, participating in or contributing to enforcement and monitoring mechanisms requires specific professional skills, including (legal) writing skills, research skills (including skills to assess the quality of research), litigation skills, advocacy skills, communication skills and skills to present information in a strategic way to a non-specialist audience (incl. e.g. politicians, wider public). The strategic deployment of one or another tactic to enforce children’s rights through the many avenues now available requires advanced consideration of benefits, risks, and requirements to success.
This course combines two overarching objectives: the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of specific and topical children’s rights issues as well as the ins and outs of relevant enforcement mechanisms, and the development of professional skills to work in this particular area. The content of this course will be tailored to the latest developments in the area of children’s rights and connect with the frontiers of children’s rights. It focuses on the (challenges with regard to the) enforcement of children’s rights through reporting and monitoring mechanisms, domestication of children’s rights (e.g. law reform), governance and political structures set up to enforce and deliver concrete children’s rights, strategic litigation, and access to justice for children including the right to lodge individual communications to treaty bodies, including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The many and significant advances in domestic child rights jurisprudence of selected key international cases will not be left out of the debates. This course builds on knowledge acquired in all of the previous courses.
The course includes a week visit to Geneva to attend a session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and meet with representatives of international (non) governmental organisations (e.g. Child Rights Connect, etc.) and international organisations that interact with children’s rights (e.g. UNICEF, OHCHR). Disclaimer : due to the Corona (COVID-19) virus excursions may have to be adjusted.
Course objectives
The course aims at the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of specific and topical children’s rights issues as well as the ins and outs of relevant enforcement mechanisms, and the development of professional skills to work in this particular area.
After this course the student will be able to:
assess the enforcement of specific substantive children’s rights issues, including the roles of relevant stakeholders and their responsibilities;
operationalize substantive and comparative children’s rights knowledge in (legal) practice of enforcement and monitoring;
engage in different enforcement methods and strategies, including (strategic) litigation, monitoring (incl. the intersection of international and national monitoring mechanisms), advocacy and lobbying and drafting of legislation/law reform;
critically assess the reliability and quality of information in order to apply children’s rights and enforcement methods; perform in different roles with different responsibilities, including ‘one issue approaches’, one side representation, balanced or even judicial/adjudicative or quasi-adjudicative roles (e.g. where children’s rights are at issue in administrative procedures); students will furthermore be able to develop implementation/enforcement strategies including principle/fundamental perspectives/approaches as well as pragmatic and effective perspectives/approaches;
apply all of the above-mentioned skills to various kinds of enforcement of children’s rights issues; and
create and present a presentation and/or present a case before a court and/or a relevant UN Committee.
Mode of instruction
The course will consist of different modules. In each module a variety of teaching and work formats will be used, including presentations, tasks and group work, and preparation of certain specific assignments.
The course includes a one-week visit to Geneva, Switzerland during which crucial stakeholders in children’s rights enforcement and monitoring will be visited. Disclaimer : due to the Corona (COVID-19) virus excursions may have to be adjusted.
Materials produced in class, such as papers or video’s, may not be published online or in any other form or be released without prior approval by the programme management.
Examination method
There will be two graded assignments covering the different modules. Each assignment weighs 50% of the final grade. The assignments will include both oral and written components.
The final grade for the course is established by determining the weighted average.
It will be up to the discretion of the relevant lecturer/examiner to decide on the form of the retake. The retake may consist of a written retake exam, oral retake exam or any other kind of assessment that is deemed appropriate.
Brightspace
The course manual, including the reading list will be published on Brightspace.
Submission of papers via Brightspace.
Course materials
A list of all study materials will be published on Brightspace. Unless otherwise indicated, all study materials are available via the online catalogue or as a paper copy in the Leiden Law Library.
Contact
Coordinators of the course:
To be confirmed
Telephone number: To be confirmed
Email address: To be confirmed
Programme Officer:
Ms. Esther Uiterweerd
Telephone number: 0031-71 527 4644
Email address: childrensrights@law.leidenuniv.nl
Disclaimer:
Currently these pages are being updated to reflect the courses for 2021 - 2022. Until these pages are fixed as per 1 September 2021 no rights can be claimed from the information which is currently contained within. In addition, due to the Corona (COVID-19) virus the courses may be adjusted. For the latest please check the course page in Brightspace.