Children's Rights

Adopting a critical, reflexive view on how children's rights are theorized, discussed and applied, the course will present and discuss the normative content, implementation and monitoring mechanisms of the international children’s rights instruments, in particular the 1989 UN Convention on the Right of the Child. In addition, the course will explore the interaction between the legal, social and political dimensions of the children’s rights project through a discussion of themes central to the field, including debates on child labour and education, child soldiering, international child protection, juvenile justice and the politics of children’s representation.

To understand and analyze the content and mechanisms of implementation and monitoring of the main international children’s rights instruments. To develop the ability to critically reflect, from an interdisciplinary approach, on the legal, social and political implementations of the global children’s rights project.

The basis for this course will be a reader composed of book chapters and journal articles that are directly relevant for the themes discussed. All material will be made available on a Moodle course (access using the following link: https://moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch/course/view.php?id=13113). The password for the Moodle course will be announced in the first class.

In addition to ex cathedra lecturing, teachings will emphasize active student participation making use of, inter alia, small group discussions, videos and case studies.

The course will take place every two weeks on Monday afternoon between 14.00 and 18.00. The dates for classes are 23/9, 7/10, 21/10, 4/11, 18/11, 2/12 and 16/12.