YCJ Special Issue of The International Journal of Children's Rights

30 Sep 2025

The Youth Climate Justice project has produced a Special Issue of The International Journal of Children’s Rights, bringing together co-authored pieces by child/youth climate advocates, lawyer practitioners, and academics. 

In September 2024, the Youth Climate Justice project at the School of Law at University College Cork (funded by the European Research Council) hosted a conference in the area of children’s rights and climate justice. Scholars, practitioners, and children/youth were invited to present their work on children/youth and environmental rights. There were critical discussions on children's rights and interests in the climate crisis, and on what the right to a healthy environment means for children. We now have a special issue from the conference in The International Journal of Children's Rights, which can be accessed here. 
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The special issue includes pieces co-authored with children and youth climate advocates, lawyer practitioners, as well as academics. The aim was to develop a body of research on climate justice and children’s rights which will support efforts such as academic work, advocacy in climate and other environmental cases, and the implementation of the General Comment on the right of children to a healthy environment. Another aim was to encourage critical thinking on a range of themes such as the extent to which justice systems are child/youth-friendly; the nature of the new General Comment; and the position of children as environmental rights activists (Daly, Paz Landeira and Maharjan, 2025).

Within the special issue, two of the articles were written by Youth Climate Justice team members. The article 'Participation and Postpaternalism: Child/youth Climate Action and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' examines the many different forms of child/youth climate action through the framework of participation rights in the UNCRC and the Lundy Model. Another article, 'COP and the Experiences of Children and Youth: Considering the Rights of Children and Youth in Global Climate Governance' brings together 20 interviews with young climate advocates and examines how children/youth exercise political agency within global climate governance linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These two co-authored articles have special contributions by young climate advocates Niamh Purcell and Alicia O'Sullivan who are both very active within the Youth Climate Justice project itself, local initiatives in Ireland and global climate governance.

Thank you so much to all of the wonderful authors and also to our friends at The International Journal of Children’s Rights! 🌱

Here are the links to all articles of this exciting special issue: 

• Editorial: Special Issue on Children's Rights and Climate Justice (Aoife Daly, Florencia Paz Landeira, Nabin Maharjan)
• COP and the Experiences of Children and Youth: Considering the Rights of Children and Youth in Global Climate Governance (Paz Landeira et al)
• Participation and Postpaternalism: Child/youth Climate Action and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Daly et al)
• An Intergenerational Exploration of Participation, Power and Praxis in Re-Imaging Children's Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment (Prathit Singh et al.)
• Learning from Ridhima Pandey: A Childist Ethics of Care for a Postpaternalist Era (Therese Boje Mortensen)
• Navahine v. Hawai'i Department of Transportation: Redressing Constitutional Youth Climate Change Injuries Through a Court-Enforced Settlement Agreement (Andrea K. Rodgers and Maria Beaucage)
• Meaningful Participation or Tokenism? Sámi Children and Youth in Norway's Climate and Green Energy Transition (Gilbert Ajebe Akame)
• 'This is about every child's future!': Can Citizens' Assemblies support the Realisation of Children's Participation Rights in Environmental Governance? (Aoife Deane et al)