Hamlyn lecture 2015 – A Magna Carta for children?

Speaker: Professor Michael Freeman (UCL)
Series: Third lecture of the Hamlyn Lectures 2015

About the lecture

It has been a difficult task convincing doubters that children have rights but we now have achieved international recognition of this. We have a landmark document to show for it.

In this third Hamlyn lecture I will argue that we cannot rest on our laurels. Twenty six years beyond the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) we need to rethink children’s rights and rethink also whether rights are the best way of improving the lives of children.

Is equality the answer? Or citizenship? Or should we be looking at well-being? Do different parts of the world need different strategies? Is there a universal child? Are rights the answer to poverty, malnutrition, disease, poor educational facilities?

But where would we be without rights? Rights PLUS is the answer. Which new rights and what else is the theme of this lecture. Another trip to Runnymede is called for!!

About the speaker

Professor Michael Freeman is Emeritus Professor of English Law. He joined the UCL Faculty of Laws in 1969 after lecturing at the University of Leeds. He is the Founding Editor of the International Journal of Children’s Rights; Editor of the International Journal of Law in Context, General Editor of International Library of Medicine, Ethics and Law and of the International Library of Family, Society and Law and former Editor of the Annual Survey of Family Law. He was editor of Current Legal Problems. He has published in the areas of Family Law, Child Law and Policy, Children’s Rights, Medicine, Ethics and the Law and Medical Law, Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, and other areas of law and policy.

The Hamlyn Lectures 2015: Delivered by Professor Michael Freeman

1. 1. Wednesday 11th November 2015 In Leeds
      Are Children Human?
   2. Wednesday 18th November 2015 In Nottingham
      Even Lawyers were Children once
   3. Wednesday 25th November 2015 at UCL in London
      A “Magna Carta” for Children?

About the Hamlyn Lecture Series

The Hamlyn Trust was created by Miss Emma Hamlyn in memory of her father, a solicitor and Justice of the Peace in Torquay, Devon, England. The object of the Trust is to further knowledge and understanding of the law, and this is achieved through an annual series of public lectures by distinguished judges, legal practitioners, academic lawyers and other eminent speakers. The first of these lectures was given by Lord Denning in 1949. The Series of lectures are normally delivered in the Autumn. In 2005 Cambridge University Press took over as publisher of the annual volume of the lectures. Publication is marked by the annual Hamlyn Seminar which is usually held in London in the Spring following the previous Autumn’s lectures.