The Youth Climate Justice (YCJ) project, funded by the European Research Council*, involves an interdisciplinary, global team undertaking transnational research on child and youth climate action inside and outside legal systems. 

All across the world, children and young people are standing up for their rights and leading different types of climate action such as taking legal action, protesting, or taking action at home, school, in the community, and online. This reveals the paternalism of much of our approach to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). The project investigates whether we are experiencing ‘post-paternalism’ in children’s rights. We use the word post-paternalism to describe grassroots action from children and youth for the first time, on a global scale, rather than well-meaning adults ‘giving’ children and youth their rights. We are examining whether we can rethink approaches to the UN CRC with children and youth as leaders, reflecting the disruption of their climate action.  

The Youth Climate Justice project is partnered with both the School of Law and the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) at UCC and is led by Principal Investigator Professor Aoife Daly. 

By the end of this five-year project, we aim to have achieved the following: 

• Publication of a database of the most relevant and important child and youth climate cases (including children's rights breakdowns) that can be used by academics, practitioners, activists, and children alike.  
• Creation of a Youth Climate Justice Network that brings together academics, practitioners, and youth for research and events.
• Interviews with young climate case litigants to determine how to achieve child friendly climate justice
• A number of workshops with climate advocate children across the world where they reflect on what their action means for human rights and intergenerational justice.
• Embedding Child-Friendly Climate Justice (CFCJ) practitioner guidelines into a ‘live’ climate case. 
• Elaboration of the new theory of Prof Daly – post paternalism. This argues that grassroots climate action from children/youth for the first time, on a global scale means that we have to rethink how we approach and interpret children’s rights/UNCRC.

*Funded by the European Union (ERC, 101088453). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.