CSJ Annual Lecture 2026

The Centre for Childhoods and Social Justice is delighted to welcome Professor Ann Skelton, one of the world’s leading children’s rights scholars and advocates, to deliver its 2026 Annual Lecture.

Armed conflict, climate change, democratic backsliding, inequality, displacement and rapid technological change are profoundly affecting children’s lives. They are also placing growing pressure on the international and domestic systems intended to protect children’s rights. In this lecture, Professor Skelton will examine how this wider global turbulence is weakening those systems and consider how the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child can remain a powerful and resilient instrument. In particular, she will explore how the Convention can be interpreted dynamically—responding to emerging threats and changing social conditions while remaining anchored in its fundamental commitments to children.

The lecture will be followed by an opportunity for questions and discussion.

About the speaker:

Professor Ann Skelton is an internationally renowned expert on children’s rights. She is Professor of Law and holds the Chair in Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World at Leiden University. She is also Professor of Law at the University of Pretoria, where she holds the UNESCO Chair in Education Law in Africa. Professor Skelton served on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2017 to 2025 and was its Chair for the final two years of her term. Over more than three decades as a children’s rights lawyer in South Africa, she has played a leading role in legal reform, strategic litigation and the development of international children’s rights standards. She helped shape South Africa’s post-apartheid child law framework through the committees that drafted the Child Justice Act. Her work has been recognised internationally through awards including the World’s Children’s Prize and the Juvenile Justice Without Borders Award.