Current research interests:

  • Implementation of Children’s Rights Law

  • Human Rights Education/Children’s Rights Education

  • Youth participation

  • Public Health Approaches to Human Trafficking

  • Legal and Cultural Constructs of Childhood

Publications

Works in Progress

  • I am currently working on a number of specific projects covering a variety of topics, including: human rights education and the arts; using data analytics to assess children’s rights law implementation; children’s constitutional rights in the United States; children and disasters; and children’s rights and child development.

  • Specific forthcoming publications include:

    • Children’s Rights and Children’s Development: An Integrated Approach (forthcoming with NYU Press, January 2025) (with Ursula Kilkelly)

    • “Sport as a Space for Human Rights Education and Children’s Rights,” Human Rights Education Review (forthcoming Spring 2025) (with Ursula Kilkelly)

    • Teaching Children’s Rights: Law and Context (Edward Elgar Publishing, under contract)

    • “Making Government Agencies Responsive to Children: A Children’s Rights-based Framework” (in progress)

Books

Book Chapters and Other Collected Works

  • “Incorporating the CRC and Its Optional Protocols in the United States.” In Incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in National Law, edited by Ursula Kilkelly, Laura Lundy, and Bronagh Byrne, Intersentia, pp. 123-143, 2021.

  • “Children and Disasters: The Essential Role of Children’s Rights Law.” In Yearbook of International Disaster Law, vol 2, edited by Giulio Bartolini, Dug Cubie, Marlies Hesselman & Jacqueline Peel, Brill/Nijhoff, pp. 177-203, 2021.

  • “Children’s Right to Participate: Insights from the Story of Malala.” In Literary Cultures and Twenty-First Century Childhoods, edited by Nathalie op de Beeck, Palgrave, 2020

  • “Violence, Exploitation, and the Rights of the Child” In International Human Rights of Children, edited by Ursula Kilkelly & Ton Liefaard, Springer, 2018.

  • “Confronting Child Exploitation: The Optional Protocols and the Role of Children’s Rights Law.” In Violence against Children: Making Human Rights Real, (Gertrud Lenzer ed., New York: Routledge, 2018).

  • “Article 8: Preservation of a Child’s Identity” in The Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary, edited by John Tobin, Oxford University Press, 2019 (co-authored with John Tobin)

  • “Children’s Rights and Women’s Rights: Interrelated and Interdependent.” In Handbook of Children’s Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Martin Ruck, Michele Peterson-Badali, and Michael Freeman, eds., New York: Routledge, 2017).

  • “Health and Human Rights” in Oxford Bibliographies (Public Health) (David McQueen ed., Oxford University Press, January 2014; revised edition 2017)

  • “At the Crossroads: Children’s Rights and the U.S. Government” in Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism (Shareen Hertel & Kathryn Libal eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011)

  • "A Human Rights Approach to Preventing Sex Trafficking of Children” in Child Slavery Now: A Contemporary Reader (Gary Craig ed., Policy Press, 2010)

    • Book voted joint winner of the Most Important Book of the Year by Policy Press, February 2011 (The award is given to the book which could make the biggest contribution to positive social change)

  • “Analyzing the Opposition to U.S. Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child” in The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Jonathan Todres, Mark Wojcik & Cris Revaz eds., Brill Academic Publishers, 2006)

  • “The Right to Health under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child” in The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Jonathan Todres, Mark Wojcik & Cris Revaz eds., Brill Academic Publishers, 2006)

  • “The Optional Protocols to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Impact of U.S. Ratification” in The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Jonathan Todres, Mark Wojcik & Cris Revaz eds., Brill Academic Publishers, 2006) (coauthored with Cris Revaz)

  • “What the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child Says (and Doesn’t Say) about Abortion and Family Planning” in The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Jonathan Todres, Mark Wojcik & Cris Revaz eds., Brill Academic Publishers, 2006) (coauthored with Louise Howe)

  • “Overview” in The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: An Analysis of Treaty Provisions and Implications of U.S. Ratification (Jonathan Todres, Mark Wojcik & Cris Revaz eds., Brill Academic Publishers, 2006) (coauthored with Mark Wojcik and Cris Revaz)

Scholarly articles in peer review and law journals

Selected Shorter Publications

  Representative popular press articles and online essays