Session Chair: Asher Ben Arieh, Hebrew University, Israel

Dr. Ton Liefaard is a Full Professor of Children’s Rights and holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at Leiden Law School, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is the Programme Director of the Master’s Programme (LL.M) Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights. He also directs the Leiden Summer School on International Children’s Rights. He received the award for best lecturer of Leiden Law School in 2015. He teaches and publishes widely on issues related to international children’s rights, juvenile justice, child friendly justice, deprivation of liberty of children, violence against children and access to justice for children. Recent publications include: Litigating the Rights of the Child (Springer 2015, edited with J.E. Doek), The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Taking Stock after 25 Years and Looking Ahead (Brill|Nijhof 2017, edited with J. Sloth-Nielsen) and the Reference Work International Human Rights of Children (Springer 2018, edited with U. Kilkelly). Ton Liefaard is a Substitute Justice at the Court of Appeal in The Hague and a member of the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles (Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming). He regularly works as a consultant for international organizations, including UN agencies, the Council of Europe and the European Union.

Wouter Vandenhole holds the chair in human rights and the UNICEF chair in children’s rights at the faculty of law of the University of Antwerp since 2007. Vandenhole serves on the editorial board of several international journals, among which the Journal of Human Rights Practice and Human Rights and International Legal Discourse. He has taken up management functions in European research and teaching networks: he was the chair of the Research Networking Programme, Beyond Territoriality: Globalization and Transnational Human Rights Obligations (GLOTHRO), funded by the European Science Foundation (2010-2014); the vice-chair of the COST Action The Role of the EU in UN Human Rights Reform (2009-2013); and member of the executive committee of the Children’s Rights Education Academic Network, funded by the Life Long Learning Programme of the European Commission (2012-2015). He is the lead convenor of an intensive training programme on sustainable development and human rights law, directs the Law and Development Research Group and has taken up several management functions in the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi).