Child Safeguarding and Human Rights. Towards a polycentric approach for public and private organisations

In the last few decades, child safeguarding has emerged as one important component of organisations´ duties in making sure children are safe, and achieve the best outcomes in all the spaces they spend time, whether this is within institutional care, sporting activities, youth clubs, or digital and online platforms. Whilst many private organisations have child safeguarding policies in sectors such as social media, investment, and sports, these seem to depend on these organisations’ own self-regulatory powers, with more work needing to be done to make it a matter of International Human Rights Law. Visiting Fellow Dr. Nicolás Espejo-Yaksic will discuss his recently published work, arguing that a polycentric approach to child safeguarding is required to make it fully effective; an approach based on the principle that all members of society play a key role in guaranteeing children´s rights, and safety. Nicolás has been a permanent advisor to the United Nations in the field of children’s rights. He has supported UNICEF in Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Perú and México. Since 2015, he has worked closely with the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence Against Children (SRSG-VAC). Nicolás is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Constitutional Studies of the Supreme Court of Mexico; Guest Lecturer in Law and Member of the Editorial Board of the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory (University of Leiden); Corresponding Member of the Cambridge Family Law Centre (University of Cambridge); Visiting Fellow (2019-2021) at Exeter College (University of Oxford )and President of the International Network on Constitutional Family Law (INCFL). The event will take place in the Fitzhugh Auditorium, Cohen Quad, and also streamed online. To join online, please click on the below link shortly before 5pm on 17th November.