10th Children’s Rights Research PhD Symposium

June 13-14, 2024, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Since 2013, the CREAN Children's Rights Research PhD Symposium has annually brought together doctoral candidates and supervisors from many universities and different disciplines. By actively promoting collaboration and scholarly exchange in an international and interdisciplinary setting, the symposium offers an opportunity to broaden academic perspectives and contribute to our understanding of children's rights.

Colleagues at the Stockholm Centre for the Rights of the Child are pleased to welcome you to Stockholm University in June 2024, for the 10th Children’s Rights Research Symposium in association with CREAN. The overall theme of the symposium is:

Looking back and moving forward
challenges and opportunities for children’s rights research

The symposium will start with a panel consisting of Aoife Daly, University College Cork, Ireland, Karl Hanson, University of Geneva, Switzerland, Maria Roth, BabesBolyai University, Romania, and Anna Nylund, University of Bergen, Norway, in which the overall theme will be discussed.

This event will mark the 10th anniversary of the CREAN Children’s Rights Symposium. Over the last decade, there has been a notable increase in both public attention and research regarding children's rights and the UNCRC. This has contributed to the prevalence of a children’s rights perspective in legislation, policy and case-law across European jurisdictions and elsewhere. The position of children as independent right holders and competent actors has indeed been established. Much has been achieved, but new challenges have emerged. For example, children’s rights are increasingly being utilized as a rationale for political reform, but often without sufficient discussion about what the actual needs of children are and how these needs are to be met. Furthermore, as more and stronger rights for children continues to be an expressed political objective, a backlash can be seen in some sectors and fields of law. For example, the welfare and rights of children are often overshadowed by other, often repressive, societal interests in both migration law and criminal law.

In response to this complex landscape there is a need to discuss the challenges and opportunities of today as well as new approaches. In this symposium this will be done from a comparative perspective with the aim to learn from each other and our different contexts, disciplines, jurisdictions as well as social and legal cultures.

Program

The symposium will be held from lunch on the 13th until the afternoon of the 14th June 2024 with an option to stay for an additional social event in the evening of the 14th. A more detailed program of the symposium will be available on the conference webpage and sent to participants in May 2024.

Call for Papers

We welcome abstracts for presentations by PhD students and we encourage presenters to engage with the overall theme of the symposium, by which a discussion on how PhD projects of today are taking on current challenges and thereby being part of moving children’s rights research forward.

Abstracts should be submitted via the digital registration link on the conference webpage by 15th of March 2024. Submissions should contain the following information:

1. Title/topic of presentation
2. Name, e-mail, institutional affiliation and name of academic supervisor
3. Abstract of maximum 600 words in which the key themes of the project are described – research questions, theoretical starting points, methodology, main results etc. The abstract should also contain an explanation of how the presentation will speak to the overall theme of the symposium.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the Organizing Committee with the overarching goal of maximizing presentation opportunities for a broad spectrum of PhD students.

Format for the symposium

PhD presentations and panels PhD students will give shorter presentations in panels with designated commentators (one senior researcher and another PhD student) and time for general discussion.

In person-attendance and social events The symposium will take place in-person only at Stockholm University. Apart from academic presentations and discussions focus will also be on informal exchange, social events and networking.

Information about travel, hotel and costs

Travel and accommodation costs will need to be covered by participants. Information about hotel options etc. will be available on the conference webpage. All meals during the conference will be covered with generous support by The Edward Cassel Foundation, Faculty of Law, Stockholm University.

Deadlines

• 15th March: deadline for abstracts from PhD students
• 31st March: confirmation to PhD students from Organizing Committee of possibility to present
• 15th April: confirmation from PhD students of their own and their supervisor’s attendance
• 15th May: registration for non-presenting attendees

Contact information

For questions, please do not hesitate to contact creanstockholm24(at)juridicum.su.se

Organizing Committee: Prof. Pernilla Leviner and PhD students Denniz Sabo and Vera Yllner