The Global Working Group on Justice for Children (GWGJ4C) is a partnership of international, multi-agency experts who promote a shared commitment to advance child-centred justice. It places children, and their human rights, at the core of the people-centred justice movement, and recognises that without equal access to justice for children, we cannot achieve equal access to justice for all as outlined in SDG 16.3.

The Global Working Group on Justice for Children is convened by the Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures at the University of Strathclyde (IICF). It includes Child Friendly Justice European Network (CFJ-EN), Defence for Children International (DCI), ECPAT International, International Legal Foundation (ILF), the Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, Terre des hommes Lausanne Foundation, UNICEF, the United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children (OSRSGVAC), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).The GWG works in close collaboration with the Justice Action Coalition.

The work of the Global Working Group 2026-2030 is informed by the 2025 Global Declaration on Advancing Child-Centred Justice and the forthcoming UN Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 27 on children’s rights to access to justice and to an effective remedy.

The Working Group was first convened by IICF in 2018 to inform the inaugural Task Force on Justice, and its Flagship report. The Task Force was created to accelerate access to justice for all by embedding justice within sustainable development efforts and placing people - including children - at the centre of justice reforms. This marked an effort to shift from justice for the few to justice for all, and laid the foundations for the Justice Action Coalition.