Jonathan Todres

Distinguished University Professor & Catherine C. Henson Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law

I am a law professor, who researches and writes on a range of issues related to children’s rights and child well-being. My research focuses in particular on: the implementation of children's rights law; human rights education; human trafficking; youth participation; legal and cultural constructs of childhood; and human rights in children’s literature. My recent book projects include: co-editing Children’s Rights and Children’s Development: An Integrated Approach (NYU Press, Jan. 2025) and The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), and coauthoring Preventing Child Trafficking: A Public Health Approach (Johns Hopkins University Press 2019) and Human Rights in Children’s Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law (Oxford University Press, 2016). I’m also a co-editor on the newest edition of the Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy, and Practice textbook (8th edition, forthcoming July 2024, with Douglas Abrams et al.).

I was appointed Rotating Honorary Chair in Enforcement of Children’s Rights at Leiden University Law School for the 2024-2025 academic year. In 2018, I served as a Fulbright Scholar at University College Cork School of Law in Ireland. I also am a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

In addition to my research, I serve as a regular advisor to various nongovernmental organizations and associations working on legislative and policy initiatives to advance children’s rights and wellbeing.

I currently serve as chair of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.  In addition, I served previously on several other National Academies committees: the Planning Committee on Exploring the Power of Youth Leadership in Creating Conditions for Health and Equity (2022); the Committee on the Biological and Psychosocial Effects of Peer Victimization: Lessons for Bullying Prevention (2014-2015); the Planning Committee on Increasing Capacity for Reducing Bullying and Its Impact on the Lifecourse of Youth Involved (2014), and the Committee on Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States (2012-2013). In addition, I previously served as chair of two sections of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS): the Section on International Human Rights in 2015, and the Section on Children and the Law in 2013. I continue to serve on the Executive Committee of the Section on Children and the Law. And I have held several leadership posts within the ABA Section of International Law, including chair of the Section’s International Life Sciences and Health Law Committee and vice chair of its International Human Rights Committee.

Prior to joining GSU College of Law, I worked as an acting assistant professor at New York University School of Law, an adjunct professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, and a visiting professor (Human Rights) at Vytautas Magnus University School of Law in Lithuania. I also practiced law with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and London and clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

I received my J.D. from Columbia Law School, where I was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and my B.A. (with high honors in International Development) from Clark University, where I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Prior to attending law school, I worked for a number of years in international development and proudly served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand.

I have taught a variety of courses at GSU, including: Human Rights and Children, Torts, Public Health Law, International Human Rights, Family Law, and Global Perspectives on Children and the Law.

At GSU College of Law, I was the recipient of the David J. Maleski Award for Teaching Excellence in 2020 and the Patricia T. Morgan Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship in 2019 and 2011.

Finally, and most important, I am a dad and a husband.