It is an exciting time in children’s rights. Children and youth have had leadership roles in efforts to combat the climate crisis, challenging traditional attitudes to children as passive victims. Children have been heard by national governments, parliaments and others in power. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has produced a General Comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, with the involvement of thousands of children all over the world. In another groundbreaking turn for children’s rights, recent climate litigation has involved a significant number of children/youth as litigants and/or has included children’s rights arguments. There is much to research in the area. There is also much to be done to bring together practitioners/advocates with academics, who analyse these occurrences through the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Questions must also be asked about the extent to which climate/environmental justice systems are sufficiently accessible and appropriate for children and youth. An international, interdisciplinary conference in 2024 aimed to fill this gap. 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. As a result, this special issue has been produced with the aim 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.