Sheila Varadan
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Assistant Professor of Children’s Rights and Global Health
Leiden Law School
Research Area: Sheila Varadan is an Assistant Professor of Children’s Rights and Global Health in a joint appointment with the Department of Child Law and the African Studies Centre. Sheila’s research interests center around children’s rights in global health, with a specific focus on antimicrobial resistance, the right to a healthy environment and intergenerational justice. Sheila is currently leading two research projects, funded by Horizons Europe and the British Academy, examining the implications of antimicrobial resistance on children’s right to a healthy environment in present and future generations.
Education: Sheila successfully defended her PhD entitled Article 5 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: parental guidance and the evolving capacities of the child in June 2022 at Leiden University. Sheila holds a Master of Laws in Human Rights (2008) from the London School of Economics, a Bachelor of Civil Law (2004) and a Juris Doctor (2004) from McGill University and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Comparative Politics and Development Studies (2000) from the University of Guelph in Canada.
Research and Work Experience:
Sheila lectures in the Advanced LLM in International Children’s Rights and the Advanced LLM in European International Human Rights Law. Sheila also teaches in the Masters of African Studies at the African Studies Centre Leiden. Prior to her doctoral studies, Sheila worked as a human rights lawyer and legal consultant for 15 years in Southeast Asia. Sheila worked on projects related to human rights, access to justice, global health and children’s rights for international humanitarian aid organizations, international non-governmental organizations and UN agencies. In 2005, Sheila received the Harold G Fox scholarship to undertake barrister pupillage at Middle Temple Inn in London, United Kingdom. She then practiced as an assistant crown attorney (criminal prosecutions) for the Ontario Ministry of Attorney General in Toronto Ontario.
Publications, Conferences & Engagement
Book Review: The Child's Right to Development, Noam Peleg (CUP, 2019)
Article 5: The Role of Parents in the Proxy Informed Consent Process in Medical Research involving Children
The Principle of Evolving Capacities under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Forthcoming, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family
Sheila's review of Dr Noam Peleg's recent monograph, ‘The Child’s Right to Development' will be published by the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family.
Dr Peleg's monograph was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.
2020, International Journal of Children's Rights
Sheila's paper ‘Article 5: The Role of Parents in the Proxy Informed Consent Process in Medical Research involving Children’ was published by the International Journal of Children’s Rights in 2020.
Her paper argues that greater consideration should be given to Article 5 as a complementary framework for researchers engaged in medical research involving children
2019
Sheila's paper 'The Principle of Evolving Capacities under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' was published by the International Journal of Children's Rights in 2019.
Her article concludes that more consideration needs to be given to the role of “evolving capacities” as a principle under the UNCRC.
Article 5: Parental Direction and Guidance and a Child’s Evolving Capacities
A Community-Based Approach to Development Programming in a Protracted Refugee Situation
2019
Sheila co-authored a chapter on 'Article 5: Parental Direction and Guidance and a Child’s Evolving Capacities' with Professor John Tobin.
This piece appeared in P. Alston and J. Tobin (Eds), The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary, Oxford Commentaries on International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press)