The amici curiae brief was filed with the United States District Court for the Central District of California, on 28 January 2020.

The authors systematically search and review relevant definitions of Security by Design (SbD) in comparison with Privacy by Design (PbD).

On 12 December 2019, Dr Yannick van den Brink, assistant professor at the Department of Child Law and Rubicon Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, gave a keynote speech at the conference ‘Strengthening Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe’, which was organised in Valencia, Spain.

The second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

In the presence of their families and friends, the thesis supervisors personally addressed each of the students and presented them with their well-deserved master diploma in the Academy Building’s Klein Auditorium.

On Monday 23 August 2021 the graduation ceremony took place in the Leiden University Academy Building’s Groot Auditorium. Graduates and staff abroad participated online via the Livestream and Zoom.

In the last five years the Dutch children’s ombudsman has developed into a full-fledged supervisory body monitoring compliance with children’s rights in the Netherlands. A fuller engagement with its statutory tasks, greater involvement of children and strengthening the autonomous position of the children’s…

We are proud of Chelsea Schuin, Xin Jiang, Siksanee Phollarpthawee and Lucy Opoka for their outstanding research and writing performance in the Children’s Rights Moot Court .

In early January, Joanne van der Leun (Dean of the Leiden Law School), Ton Liefaard (Program Director of the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights, LL.M), and Anette van Sandwijk (Head Bureau International Education) visited China.

The ‘Leer te Durven!’ program (Learn to Dare) is a preventive training program for children with mild anxiety symptoms (Simon & Bögels, 2014). The program has been developed for children between the ages of 8 and 12 who feel or behave anxiously, avoid situations, are afraid of doing things wrong, appear…

A delegation of the Child Law Department has attended the World congress on family law and children’s rights in Dublin, from 4-7 June. This congress organised once in every four years was hosted by prof. Ursula Kilkelly (University College Cork). Over 600 people attended the congress; professionals…

In a podcast of the Netherlands Internet Governance Forum (NL GF) and the Safer Internet Centre Nederland, Simone van der Hof, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University and Thijs Hannema, a lawyer at Kennedy van der Laan, discuss online privacy of children.

At the start of 2020, the book ‘Safeguarding Children’s Rights in Immigration Law’ was published by Intersentia.

In this thesis, dynamic testing principles were applied to examine young children's potential for learning. Our studies focused on the role of cognitive flexibility, to further increase our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in children's ability to learn from instruction and feedback,…

How do children learn to see the world through someone else’s perspective? Max van Duijn, assistant professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), receives 24,167 euros from the Elise Mathilde Foundation and the Leiden University Fund (LUF). With this grant he will set up a…

Leiden University addresses the UN on children’s rights

48 student teams from all over the world will be taking part in the international online moot court competition. The event is organised by Leiden University in partnership with Baker McKenzie.

On Tuesday 23 August 2022 the graduation ceremony took place in Leiden University’s Academy Building. Graduates and their guests greatly enjoyed the festive ceremony.

Prof. Ton Liefaard and Chrisje Sandelowsky-Bosman visited Curaçao to launch de Caribbean Center for Children’s Rights and present research.

Max van Duijn, Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), has been awarded a Veni grant for his research into children's empathy. The ability to empathise can be studied by telling stories. This process, known as 'Theory of Mind' or ‘mindreading’, can provide important…

On Wednesday, 30 August 2023, the graduation ceremony took place in Leiden University’s Academy Building. The ceremony was a momentous occasion, attended by distinguished guests, faculty members, and the proud families and friends of the graduates. The event celebrated the hard work, dedication, and…

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

On 8-9 December 2016 the Department of Children’s Rights of Leiden Law School held an international PhD conference on Children’s Rights in Leiden, under the direction of Ton Liefaard, Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Marielle Bruning. As one of the institutional partners of this department in the research program…

The case note examines the recent inquiry report published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Organised in collaboration with the Bosnia and Herzegovina State Ministry of Justice, UNICEF’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office and UNICEF’s Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Office, the conference took place from 25-27 February 2020, in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

A significant percentage of children who have spent a period in youth care institutions or foster homes since 1945 received inadequate protection from physical, psychological and sexual violence. Interventions by supervisory authorities in cases involving violence were inadequate.

On 6 September 2019, the Governor of Murang'a County, Mwangi wa Iria, signed a declaration at Leiden University to protect the rights of children.

On November 17, 2017, Professor Simone van der Hof gave a duo lecture with her colleague Professor Eva Lievens from Ghent University during the 'Children and Digital Rights' conference at the Information Law and Policy Centre, which is part of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of L…

Stephanie Rap and Chrisje Sandelowsky-Bosman have contributed as authors to the online training manual for lawyers, that is developed as part of the training programme Advancing the Defence Rights of Children.

Dutch children’s picture books are full of animals, but mainly mammals are portrayed. Especially pets and exotic animals are popular. A large part of the Dutch fauna is less visible, but biologist Michiel Hooykaas of Leiden University sees plenty of opportunities for a more biodiverse book world.

Children’s clothes are full of cute, fun and cool animals. Researcher Michiel Hooykaas investigated which animals were most prevalent, to see how cultural product can influence the knowledge of biodiversity.

Traditional school tests, like the Dutch CITO, largely reflect students' existing knowledge and abilities. However, dynamic testing sheds light on students' learning potential, discovered Mirjam de Vreeze in her PhD research. This approach is especially promising for children with learning challenges,…

Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.

Children in the Netherlands develop prejudices based on ethnicity at an early age. Ymke de Bruijn (27) came to this conclusion in her dissertation ‘Child Interethnic Prejudice in the Netherlands: Social Learning from Parents and Picture Books’. For her PhD project she took a closer look at the behaviours…

As a prelude to the Night of Discoveries, an Afternoon of Discoveries will be held in Leiden on 21 September for children from the age of eight. Researchers will tell exciting tales and the children will get to do experiments.

Digitisation and poor reception of refugees are putting children’s rights at risk. This warning comes from Professor Ton Liefaard. His department is organising a summer school on this issue.

Recently the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School (Leiden University) launched the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory.

As a member of the international advisory board, Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard, participated in the final expert meeting of the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, in Venice from 11-13 March 2019.

Foster children’s behaviour is more problematic than that of their peers in ‘normal’ family situations. However, it is difficult to determine the exact cause of behavioural problems. Anouk Goemans, a researcher in clinical child and adolescent studies, calls for more screening and monitoring. PhD defence…

For refugee children, the right to information is of great importance to make their voice heard. Stephanie Rap is studying the child’s right to participate in the asylum procedure. She has also studied the working method of the Dutch Council for Refugees in this context.

On 28 January 2015, Prof. Ton Liefaard participated in a panel discussion on

Robots, nervous looks and above all, lots of fun. On November 16, children up to 16 years old came together for the MakeX competition. With this robot contest, in which children program their own robots, children are made enthusiastic about technology and programming.

On early October, the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights released its October Newsletter to its friends and partner networks.

Anke Klein and her team have devised a fun and useful app to help anxious children. In the app, children can upload a video of themselves showing, for example, something that went well for them and share their success with parents, granny or grandad. Developmental psychologist Klein talks about the…

The third edition of the bi-annual Children's Rights Moot Court has come to a spectacular end in the first week of April.