Overview
This consultancy supports the development of a global Legal Atlas on child protection and migration-related justice issues. The assignment combines legal research, data validation, and digital knowledge product development.
Job details
- Contract type: Consultant
- Duty station: Amman
- Location: Jordan
- Category: Child Protection
- Advertised: 25 Sep 2026 Jordan Standard Time
- Deadline: 04 Oct 2026 Jordan Standard Time
Responsibilities
Under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist, Justice for Children and Legal Reform, based at the UNICEF Centre of Excellence in Amman, the consultant will lead research, validation, design, and online development of the Legal Atlas. Work will be performed remotely with close coordination with UNICEF country offices and relevant technical partners.
Key activities include:
- Develop an inception report, research protocol, legal taxonomy, data fields, source hierarchy, and quality-assurance methodology.
- Identify, review, and extract information from constitutions, criminal and juvenile justice legislation, civil codes, and other authoritative legal sources for all countries and territories covered.
- Record citations, links, dates of enactment or amendment, legal exceptions, and explanatory notes in a structured, editable dataset.
- Analyse each jurisdiction against relevant international standards, clearly distinguishing verified law from interpretation and flagging information gaps.
- Prepare country profiles and validation packages; coordinate review by UNICEF country offices and COEs; maintain a comments and resolution log.
- Incorporate validated comments and finalize the global legal dataset and accompanying narrative content.
- Develop information architecture, user journeys, wireframes, and visual design for the Legal Atlas in line with UNICEF branding, accessibility, and usability requirements.
- Configure and populate the online database, including search, filter, comparison, download, and update functions, and provide administrator guidance.
- Conduct quality assurance and user testing, correct identified issues, and prepare a final launch-ready package.
- Provide additional research, editing, coordination, and knowledge-management support related to justice for children, as requested in writing by the contract manager.
Purpose of Assignment
The Legal Atlas will cover all countries and territories for which authoritative legal information can be verified. It will document:
- The statutory age of majority and minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR), including exceptions.
- Differentiated thresholds and relevant implementation provisions.
- Alignment with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No. 24.
The Atlas’ immediate advocacy objective is to promote a MACR of at least 14 years, without exceptions that permit children below that age to be held criminally responsible.
Requirements
Minimum requirements
- Education: Master’s university degree in law, human rights, international development, public policy, social sciences, or another field relevant to justice for children and child protection.
- Experience:
- Minimum six (6) years of progressively responsible professional experience in justice for children, child protection, human rights, legal reform, or a related field.
- Demonstrated experience conducting high-quality comparative legal, policy, or programme research across multiple jurisdictions.
- Proven experience analysing or contributing to laws, policies, strategies, guidance, or programmes related to justice for children.
- Language requirements:
- Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
- Working proficiency in French or Spanish is highly desirable.
- Knowledge/skills:
- Ability to verify primary legal sources, manage structured datasets, and present complex legal information accurately and accessibly.
- Sound knowledge of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 24, and other relevant international human rights and juvenile justice standards.
- Excellent analytical, drafting, editing, communication, and stakeholder-coordination skills.
- Ability to manage multiple deliverables and work effectively in a remote, multicultural environment across regions and time zones.
- Experience developing legal atlases, digital knowledge products, online databases, or comparable public-facing platforms is highly desirable.
- Experience working with UNICEF, another United Nations entity, or an international child rights organization is an asset.
Preferred Qualifications
- Working proficiency in French or Spanish.
- Experience developing legal atlases, digital knowledge products, online databases, or comparable public-facing platforms.
- Experience working with UNICEF, another United Nations entity, or an international child rights organization.
Compensation & Benefits
- A separate financial proposal is required with the application.
- No additional compensation details are provided in the vacancy notice.
Application Documents & Notes
Qualified candidates are invited to submit:
- An up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV)
- Cover letter
- A separate financial proposal (Financial proposal Consultancy - TMS.docx)
Additional remarks:
- UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of recruitment, selection, and hiring.
- UNICEF will not ask applicants for bank account information.
- Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Location and Work Conditions
- Duty station: Amman
- Work arrangement: Remote work with coordination across regions and time zones.