Jens Martin Scherpe, Ph.D., Professor of Comparative Law
Juridisk Institut, Aalborg University, Denmark
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS TO THE RECOGNITION OF THEIR PARENTAL RELATIONSHIPS
Jens M. Scherpe is Professor of Comparative Law at Aalborg University, Denmark, and an Academic Door Tenant at Queen Elizabeth Building (QEB), London. He founding director of the Nordic Centre for Comparative and International Family Law (NorFam), Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape. Until August 2022, he was Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Cambridge where he also founded the Cambridge Family Law Centre. He has held visiting positions i.a. at universities in Sydney, Auckland, London, Vienna, Barcelona, Padua, Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, Hong Kong and Melbourne. Professor Scherpe is the editor of the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (IJLPF) and book series editor of the ‘Elgar Comparative Family Law Series’. He recently was appointed as independent expert to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on Access to Origins and has advised law reform bodies in England, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. His most recent book, De Facto Relationships: A Comparative Guide, a comparative study of the laws governing cohabitation in more than 38 jurisdictions, will be published by Edward Elgar Publishing by the end of 2026.
Aleksandra Korać Graovac, Ph.D., Full Professor with Tenure
Faculty of Law Zagreb, University of Zagreb, Croatia
CHILDREN CONCEIVED THROUGH MEDICALLY ASSISTED REPRODUCTION: THE RIGHT TO DIGNITY, THE RIGHT TO BE CARED FOR BY HIS/HER PARENTS, AND THE RIGHT TO NON-DISCRIMINATION
Aleksandra Korać Graovac, Ph.D. is a Full Professor with Tenure in the Department of Family Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, where she has long dedicated herself to teaching at both the graduate and postgraduate levels. Throughout her distinguished career, she has made outstanding contributions to the development of family law in the Republic of Croatia, establishing herself as a leading expert in the field both nationally and internationally. Her expert and scientific engagement is deeply interwoven with the creation of modern Croatian legislation. As a member of numerous governmental commissions, she has played a pivotal role in drafting key legislative frameworks. This includes her work on successive drafts of the Family Act (enacted in 1999, 2003, and 2007, as well as the draft of 2016), the Act on Personal Civil Status (2012), and the Act on the Registered Partnership (2014). Beyond her legislative contributions, Professor Korać Graovac holds highly influential roles within public and judicial bodies. She serves as a Scientific Counsellor to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia and is a member of the National Commission for Medically Assisted Procreation, where she contributes her expertise to complex bioethical and legal issues. Her international standing is reflected in her prominent appointments within the Council of Europe. She served as a deputy member of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) from 2002 to 2007. As the Croatian representative, she actively participated in the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on Family Law (2006 – 2008), where she was elected Vice-Chair in 2007, and later continued her contribution as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of Experts on Family Law in 2011 and 2012. Since 2024, she has served as a member of the Committee of Experts on Access to Origins (CJ-OR). On the global stage, Professor Korać Graovac served on the Executive Council of the International Society of Family Law (ISFL) from 2006 to 2008. Reflecting her commitment to fostering cross-border cultural and academic ties, she also co-founded the Austrian-Croatian Society in 1991. In Croatia, her contributions are recognized through her membership in the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences. She also served as a member of the Justitia et Pax Commission of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference from 2004 to 2015. An accomplished scholar, Professor Korać Graovac is the author and co-author of several university textbooks and approximately fifty scientific articles and professional papers. The international acclaim for her academic work was recently culminated in 2026, when she was awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa by the University of Miskolc.
Roberta Ruggiero, Ph.D.
Centre for Children’s Rights Studies, Université de Genève, Switzerland
TRANSFORMATIVE CHILDREN’S RIGHTS RESEARCH: SETTING AN AGENDA FROM COMPLIANCE TO FULFILMENT
Roberta Ruggiero, Ph.D. is the Academic Coordinator of the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN) and Director of the Children’s Rights Academy at the University of Geneva’s Centre for Children’s Rights Studies. She holds a master’s degree in law, a master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the European Inter-University Centre in Venice, and a doctorate in Children’s Rights Promotion and Protection awarded by the University of Molise, with additional specialisation in Public Policy Analysis from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Formerly, she was the Scientific Coordinator of the European Network of National Observatories on Childhood, based at the Istituto degli Innocenti (2008–2013). She was also a senior lecturer at the University of Padua, an external professor of children’s rights at the University of Molise, and a researcher at the International Organization for Migration (Europe Office) and at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Office. Her publications and research interests in the interdisciplinary field of children’s rights studies focus on the implementation and monitoring of international public law dedicated to children’s rights, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, independent child rights institutions, legal and social indicators for and impact assessment of evidence-based childhood policy, comparative policy analysis, multi-level governance implementation of children’s rights, knowledge brokering, and the development of interdisciplinary continuing education in international and national children’s rights. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice (Springer), and of the Board of the Terre des hommes Foundation, Lausanne, Switzerland. In January 2024, she was awarded the UNESCO Janusz Korczak Medal in recognition of her contribution to promoting human rights and children’s rights in higher education.
Orsolya Szeibert, Ph.D., Full Professor
Eötvös Lorand (ELTE) University in Budapest, Hungary
CHILD’S BEST INTERESTS AND PECULARITIES OF CHILD-FRIENDLY JUSTICE
Orsolya Szeibert, Ph.D. is Professor of Law at Eötvös Lorand (ELTE) University in Budapest (Hungary). She is currently Chair Professor of Civil Law Department of Faculty of Law. Her main research field is family law, comparative and international family law, marriage, cohabitation, parental responsibilities, and children’s rights. She is the professional leader of the LLM course on family law, LLM course on children’s rights (ELTE) and has been involved in several international, European and national family law projects (among others Hungarian expert of CEFL, Hungarian Member of Academic Network on Family Law in Europe – FL-EUR, member of the experts’ group on civil law of the Hungarian Supreme Court). She is expert member of the Child Rights NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child which was founded on the initiative of the UNICEF National Committee for Hungary in 2015 and editor of both the most prestigious Hungarian legal journal (Jurisprudential Bulletin) and the only Hungarian journal on family law (Family Law Review). She regularly gives lectures on Hungarian and international conferences and contributes to Hungarian and international volumes of studies on family law and contributed to EU projects such as C.L.A.S.S.4EU (JUST-JTRA-EJTR-AG-2016), FAMIMOVE 2.0 (JUST-2022-JCOO), FAMIMOVE 3.0 (JUST-2025-JCOO) and won a Jean Monnet teaching Module in 2024 on Children’s Rights in EU Law and Policies.
