Published on November 25, 2024 by Morgan Black  
David Smolin

David Smolin, Harwell G. Davis Professor of Constitutional Law, is an internationally sought-after expert on children’s and human rights. As the director of Cumberland’s Center for Children, Law and Ethics, his work has impact across the state, country and globe.


Smolin’s recent activities include:

• Served as co-editor of “Facing the Past: Policies and Practices for Responses to Illegal Intercountry Adoptions” with Elvira Loibl, Maastricht University Faculty of Law in the Netherlands; authored 65-page introduction.
• Served as a co-author of “Surrogacy, Intermediaries, and the Sale of Children,” with Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, in Research Handbook on Surrogacy and the Law.
• Authored “Beyond Apologies: Children, Mothers, Religious Liberty, and the Mission of the Catholic Church” for the Cumberland Law Review.
• Authored “Kids are not Cakes: A Children's Rights Perspective on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia” for the Cumberland Law Review.
• Assisted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM). PCPM members are appointed by Pope Francis and focus on preventing and responding to sexual abuse in Catholic contexts (including clerical abuse). Smolin presented to the members in September 2023, and two of his papers are published on the PCPM website. Three students received credit for assisting with the research.
• Serves as a special adviser for Child Identity Protection (CHIP), a Swiss child rights non-governmental agency. In this role, he interacts with some of the top children’s rights experts in the world.
• Served as independent expert for the Hague Conference on Private International Law, International Social Service, and as a member Children’s of Alabama’s Ethics Committee.
• Presented at the University of Alabama School of Law’s Symposium on Youth Incarceration and Juvenile Justice in Alabama in February 2023.
• Presented to the International Conference on “The ‘manufactured child,’”co-sponsored by the University of Geneva Center for the Rights of the Child in December 2023.
• Presented to the Gujarat National Law University, Centre for Law and Society 3rd International Conference on Social Work, Law and Human Rights in March 2024.
• Moderated a CLE on the topic of child trafficking which the Center for Children, Law and Ethics co-sponsored in March 2024.

This story was originally published in the 2024 edition of Cumberland Lawyer magazine. Read the complete issue here.

 
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