Katrien Klep joined the Department of Child Law as an Assistant Professor in 2016.

More information about Katrien Klep

She teaches several courses in the Advanced Master of Laws: International Children’s Rights. Currently she is both Academic Coordinator and Thesis Coordinator of the Advanced Master. She obtained her Senior Teaching Qualification in 2020.

Her research focuses on two major interests: (1) how do (human) rights work in practice; and (2) the use of legal methods and qualitative methods in research.

Katrien Klep studied Latin American Studies and International Law at Utrecht University. She did her master research in Ecuador focusing on human rights and indigenous rights to land. After her studies she worked for several years as clerk of the court in the Refugee Law Unit of the Amsterdam District Court. She obtained her doctorate on the anthropological analysis of transitional justice instruments, at Utrecht University. She worked for several years as senior lecturer and senior thesis supervisor in the Cultural Anthropology Bachelor and the Masters ‘Multiculturalism,’ and ‘Cultural Anthropology: Sustainable Citizenship,’ at Utrecht University.

Her research engages with the question of effective implementation and the day to day practice of children’s rights on the local, municipal, level. She was senior researcher on the multi-disciplinary team that carried out the evaluation of the Children’s Ombudsman Act in 2017. Her current research, funded by LUF, on complaints procedures in voluntary youth care in practice at the municipal level, looks at access to justice for children on the local level.

She teaches research design and research methods to students and PhD candidates, and also hosts coaching sessions for PhD candidates.

Katrien Klep teaches in the annual Summer School ‘Frontiers of Children’s Rights.’  She also participates in the Child Rights Research Symposium network, a collaboration between research groups from different European Universities that work on children’s rights and child and family law.

She has been member of the ‘Think Tank’ on local human rights of the Municipality of Utrecht. Currently, she is an active expert member of the ‘Think Tank’ ‘Utrecht Children’s Rights City’ of the Municipality of Utrecht.

Publications