Child first, migrant second?

Rebecca Thorburn Stern 
Professor of Public International Law
Uppsala University, Sweden

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC) establishes a comprehensive catalogue of rights for children, including children on the move. In the context of migration, however, the child-centred perspective of the Convention and its general principles of the child's best interest and the child's right to be heard may be at risk of being overshadowed by the child's status as a migrant with all that that entails.

This lecture discusses what it means to apply a rights-based perspective on migrant children, children in forced migration in particular, and the consequences this might have, for example, for the assessment of the right to international protection.

Rebecca Thorburn Stern is Professor of Public International Law at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her main research interests include migration and asylum law, the human rights of children, and the relationship between national and international law.

Professor Stern is currently Research Director for the Uppsala Forum for Democracy, Peace and Justice. Thorburn Stern has published widely on asylum law and policy and the rights of children. 

This keynote is free and open to the public.