SDG16: Accelerating Progress to Achieve Justice for Children–Leveraging Innovations to Close the Justice Gap

July 10, 2024 | 10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (ET) | New York City (with hybrid attendance 10:00–11:00 a.m.)
Baker Makenzie, 452 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Learn more here | Register here

Serving as a key preparatory milestone in anticipation of the 2025 World Congress on Justice With Children, and informing the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s development of the upcoming General Comment No. 27 on children’s rights to access to justice and effective remedies, this side event at the 2024 UN High-Level Political Forum brings together governments, multilateral organizations, civil society organizations, and children and young people themselves to offer innovations which support the achievement of child-centered access to justice.

This side event is a multilateral call for strong partnerships and international, national, and local action to achieve SDG16 for children. The event will give special attention to those children in vulnerable situations, facing the greatest adversity, and will reflect our Agenda 2030 ambitions to ‘leave no one behind’ and reach ‘the furthest behind, first.’

Objectives  

Access to justice for children is increasingly recognized as an essential building block for a sustainable future. This side event will profile strategies that are delivering innovative policies and practices, and closing the vast justice gap that children face, to create an equitable future for all. It aims to:

• Leverage knowledge of practice and systems innovations across regions and contexts, to accelerate progress to achieve justice for children .

• Shine a spotlight on national government leadership action on children’s justice issues, to promote a strategic, collaborative approach across governments and civil society.

• Inform the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s emergent General Comment No. 27, by contributing access to justice game-changers.

Speakers

• Dr. Najat Maalla M’jid, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children
• Ms. Delphine Schantz, Director, UNODC New York
• Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations in New York (TBC)
• H.E. Mr Hector Gómez Hernández, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Spain
• H.E. Mr. Olivier Maes, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Luxembourg
• H.E Richard Arbeiter, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada
• Mr. Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen, OECD Deputy Secretary-General (TBC)

This event is sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations in New York, with co-sponsors the Permanent Missions of Canada, Luxembourg, and Spain; hosted by Baker McKenzie Law Firm; and organized with the Child Friendly Justice European Network, Defence for Children International, the Global Initiative on Justice With Children, the Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures at the University of Strathclyde, International Legal Foundation, Legal Empowerment Fund, the NGO Panel on Children Deprived of Liberty, OECD, Pathfinders for Peace, Just and Inclusive Societies, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, Terre des hommes, UNICEF, and UNODC

This event is supported by the SDG16+ Working Group on Justice for Children led by the University of Strathclyde, the  Global Initiative on Justice with Children led by Terre des hommes, with the NGO Panel on Children Deprived of Liberty