With the Convention on the Rights of Children reaching its quarter-century mark on November 20 of this year, the Department of Child Law of the Netherlands’ Leiden University is preparing to host a conference looking back and forward at the global state of children’s rights. Entitled “25 Years CRC,” it will be held November 17 to 19, 2014, at the university’s Leiden campus.

Organizers from several universities welcome paper proposals for the conference, from “international academics and professionals working in the field of children’s rights and related fields,” on subjects pertaining to conference sessions.

On November 18, the conference will address the theme “The implications of the CRC after 25 years.” Organizing this day’s sessions will be: Ton Liefaard and Mariëlle Bruning, Leiden University; Jaap E. Doek, former Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child; Jacqui Gallinetti, Head of Research at Plan International; Ursula Kilkelly, University College Cork, Ireland; and Wouter Vandenhole, University of Antwerp, Belgium. Breakout session topics will address:

► Embedding the CRC at the domestic level – the jurisprudential ‘value added’
► Embedding children’s rights as a vehicle for tertiary and post school studies
► Interdisciplinarity and children’s rights
► Monitoring children’s rights – international and domestic mechanisms
► Visibility of children – children’s participation and enforcement of their rights
► Juvenile justice

On November 19, discussion will turn to the theme “New frontiers of children’s rights for the future.” Organizing this day’s sessions will be: Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Simone van der Hof, Leiden University; Karin Arts, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague; Karl Hanson, Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch, Sion, Switzerland; Andrew Mawson, Chief of child protection, UNICEF Office of Research Innocenti; Gary Melton, Clemson University, South Carolina; and Benyam Mezmur, Chair of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and Vice-chair of U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child. Breakout session topics will include:

► Child protection systems
► Children and the global development agenda
► Children’s rights and the digital era
► Research for 2040
► The interrelationship between children’s rights and the broader human rights system
► Children’s rights and migration

Descriptions of each session, as well as registration fees and other details, are available in the full call for papers here. (Full conference website is here.) Abstracts of no more than 300 words are due no later than April 1, 2014.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)