Professor Ann Skelton: Championing Children’s Rights and Access to Justice

This week, we spotlight Professor Ann Marie Skelton, a South African jurist, academic, and globally recognized children’s rights advocate. Her extensive work over decades has significantly shaped the global discourse and practice on child justice, education law, and the rights of the child.

Professor Skelton currently holds dual academic chairs: the UNESCO Chair in Education Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria and the Chair in Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World at Leiden University, where she continues to influence legal scholarship and policy reform. She is also an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa and was director of the Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria, where she led strategic litigation that brought about transformative changes in child law.

From 2023 to 2025, Professor Skelton served as Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), making history with her leadership and commitment to advancing children’s rights on the global stage. She played a pivotal role in the development and advocacy of the Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure (OPIC), a groundbreaking mechanism that allows children to bring complaints directly to the UNCRC when their rights are violated.

As part of commemorating OPIC’s 10th anniversary, Professor Skelton led a high-level event in Geneva on 12 September 2024, where global thought leaders gathered to reflect on OPIC’s progress. In his keynote address, Professor Ton Liefaard of Leiden University emphasized the need to make OPIC more accessible and urged for more countries to ratify the protocol. Under Professor Skelton’s leadership, the Committee has strengthened its focus on access to justice for children, reinforcing OPIC as a vital tool in empowering children worldwide to seek redress.

This milestone followed an international conference hosted earlier in April 2024 by Leiden University, in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNICEF. The conference, themed “10 Years of OPIC: Pathways of Access to Justice for Children,” brought together academics, policymakers, and civil society actors to assess the protocol’s impact and identify future priorities. A key outcome was the publication of a comprehensive report summarizing key discussions and recommendations, a valuable resource now available to advocates and policymakers.

Beyond her work at the UN, Professor Skelton has influenced major legal reforms in South Africa, including her leadership in drafting the Child Justice Act of 2008 and contributions to the Children’s Act of 2005. Her litigation efforts have secured significant victories in education, juvenile justice, and the protection of child victims.

Her accolades include the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (2012), the Juvenile Justice Without Borders International Award (2016), and an honorary LLD from the University of Strathclyde (2023). She is also a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.