Human Rights and Legal Services for Children and Youth

Book excerpt: This book discusses legal services clinics and various other access-to-justice initiatives that are established to protect and represent the rights and interests of children and youth in several countries across the globe. These could include legal services or access-to-justice clinics run by government or universities or community. The book has contributions from academicians, lawyers, researchers and legal professionals from several counties including India, UK, USA, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, Poland, and Spain, which discuss how they represent children and youth in their countries. The book looks at how these access-to-justice initiatives currently provide assistance, what are the child friendly justice procedures they use, and best practices that can be replicable in other jurisdictions. The chapters contain findings of field research studies, some case studies, and models related to these topics. There are recommendations on ways to strengthen access-to-justice and legal services for empowering children and youth. The main goal is to create a resource for readers who want to expand child advocacy opportunities in their own universities and communities. The reader may also learn how to conduct legislative advocacy and case law advocacy to improve laws in other jurisdictions; and take-away best and replicable initiatives. The practices could be adaptable by other clinics and countries. The book will be useful to child rights advocates and defenders, students of law, legal researchers, civil society organizations, legal services authorities, legal aid institutions, educational institutions, school authorities, juvenile justice authorities, clinical legal educators, justice educators, justice practitioners and law and policy makers.