Ann Skelton first holder of Rotating Honorary Chair Enforcement of Children's Rights
This new rotating professorship has been established to offer renowned academics the opportunity to teach and conduct research on international children's rights, while at the same time unlocking knowledge that has been acquired worldwide on children's rights.
The discipline of children's rights occupies a unique position in Leiden since Leiden University is one of the few universities that offers children’s rights as an academic field of study. For this reason, students from over the whole world come to Leiden to participate on the English-taught Master of Laws Advanced Studies in International Children's Rights or attend one of the other academic activities such as the annual summer school and the Leiden Children's Rights Observatory. Renowned academics are also proactive in offering their time and teaching and research capacity.
The ultimate aim of the department, which also holds the UNICEF Chair in Children's Rights, is to acquire knowledge about international children's rights and to then disseminate this acquired knowledge throughout the world. To this end, this rotating professorship has been established for five years with support from the Kroese-Duijsters Fund, one of the named funds of the Leiden University Fund.
'Uitstekende band'
Ann Skelton will teach on the course Enforcement and Monitoring of Children's Rights, part of the Master of Laws Advanced Studies in International Children's Rights programme. She will also be involved in supervising PhD research, the summer school and the 2021 Children's Rights Moot Court. She is looking forward to holding the rotating professorship this academic year: 'I have enjoyed excellent collaborations with Leiden professors Ton Liefaard and Julia Sloth-Nielsen for some time. Together we worked on various academic projects and I already taught at Leiden Law School in 2019. It is wonderful to now be a part of this faculty. It is a huge honour for me and I will make every effort to make it a success.'
Skelton currently holds the UNESCO Chair: Education Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She is also a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
See here for the article about the the Rotating Honorary Chair Enforcement of Children's Rights on the website of the University of Pretoria.