Supporting children’s rights is a longstanding pillar of our pro bono efforts. These projects from 2021 tackled the legal protection of children at a systemic level through innovative research, collaboration and information sharing. 

Aiding the legal protection of children in the Middle East

Hana’s case is one of many involving children across the Middle East that will benefit from the research our lawyers are doing for the NRC and Save the Children. 

In 2021, White & Case lawyers undertook a comprehensive review of all domestic laws and regulations affecting children in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria and Yemen. Due to be released in 2022, the report extends the scope of the NRC’s Legal Protection of Children Toolkit, used by lawyers working as part of the NRC’s Information, Counseling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) program. 

“These are complicated jurisdictions with multiple legal systems, government and non-government actors, and different territories and frameworks,” said Martin Clutterbuck, ICLA Regional Advisor at the NRC Middle East Regional Office. “The White & Case team included Arabic speakers with close ties to the countries we reviewed, which contributed enormously to getting good results for a very vulnerable population.”

This research is the first of its kind to be available publicly, and it will bolster casework, litigation, approaches to authorities, advocacy campaigns and political reform work. NRC and Save the Children will also use it to educate and inform diplomats, donors and the international community. The new toolkit will be shared with UN agencies, child protection groups and other stakeholders working in the Middle East. 

“Three organizations with global reach and significant complementary capabilities, coming together to work on a project like this, is quite extraordinary,” said Simon Miller, General Counsel at Save the Children Australia. “The level of effort and capability that White & Case has brought to this has exceeded expectations on all levels.”

In total, 60 lawyers including 15 partners from our offices in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Doha, Dubai and Riyadh contributed to the research during the second half of 2021.

“We were able to pull together the region-wide team within a week or two,” said Alec Johnson, partner in our Riyadh office. “It was not hard to get volunteers to work on a project that helps the most vulnerable children in such a fundamental way. Further, there was great enthusiasm to leverage our large presence in the Middle East in a way that has meaningful impact across the region.”

The first critical review of child’s rights strategic litigation

It is important that children’s rights be upheld in a way that extends rights for all children, including through strategic litigation.  

Advancing Child Rights Strategic Litigation (ACRiSL) is a three-year global research collaboration bringing together advocacy and academia, including our longstanding pro bono partner Child Rights International Network, to examine how strategic litigation has been used to advance children’s rights and to develop a model of strategic litigation that respects these rights. 

We provided case notes on 80 leading child rights strategic litigation cases, which will form part of a first-of-its-kind public database. Fifty-six lawyers and legal team members from 20 offices were involved, focused in particular on how the cases were brought and the ways in which the strategies deployed were innovative. The bulk of the cases were in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and our lawyers’ language abilities were essential to the work.

“The thoughtful, useful, well-structured case notes provided by White & Case helped make this aspect of the project possible,” said project lead Aoife Nolan, Professor of International Human Rights Law and HRLC Co-Director at the University of Nottingham. “Further, the research work involved a critical engagement with legal practice, and White & Case hasn’t flinched from that.”

“As lawyers, we have a privilege and a duty – especially in these challenging times – to do whatever is in our power and our experience to make the world a better place for the youngest and most vulnerable members of society,” said supervising partner Ingrid Wijnmalen of our Frankfurt office. 

ACRiSL will launch the database in early 2022 for use by lawyers, civil society organizations and a range of other stakeholders. It will provide an invaluable resource for lawyers seeking to incorporate children’s rights in their strategic litigation work. 

Photo by Muhammed Muheisen © Bespoke Reps
Afghan refugee children attend school in Islamabad, Pakistan