Contemporary Legal and Ethical Challenges in Children’s Health: Reproduction, Technology, Capacity, Medicine and Violence – Editorial

Abstract

This special issue of the QUT Law Review focuses on contemporary legal and ethical problems in the sphere of children’s health and reproduction. The special issue arises from a multidisciplinary colloquium hosted at the Queensland University of Technology in July 2017, by the Australian Centre for Health Law Research (‘ACHLR’). This colloquium was attended by a diverse group of experts in the field, including legal scholars, legal practitioners, bioethicists and health practitioners. It was encouraging to see a number of attendees from the colloquium submit papers to this special issue, as well as a range of other leading scholars in the field. The focus on children’s rights is timely in the current Australian social and political climate and the research undertaken by the contributors to this special issue is significant in terms of conceptualising the rights of children, and analysing the extent to which the law prioritises their welfare and protects their interests.