UN Women: Legal Consultant -Digital Child Protection Legislative Reform, Beirut, Lebanon - National Consultant - Home-Based

Overview

The organization seeks a Legal Consultant to support a legislative initiative led by a woman parliamentarian concerning the protection of children from digital and technology-facilitated harms, including harms that disproportionately or differently affect girls and adolescent girls.

The assignment will include a comprehensive assessment of Lebanon’s relevant legal and institutional framework, targeted comparative legal research, stakeholder consultation, development of evidence-based legislative and regulatory reform options, and preparation of a legislative reform package (the final form may include a standalone law, amendments to existing legislation, regulatory/implementing measures, or a combination).

Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the organization’s Country Representative and the day-to-day supervision of the Project Coordination Analyst, and in close coordination with the designated parliamentarian championing the legislative initiative, the consultant will provide specialized legal expertise to:

• Assess Lebanon’s existing framework
• Identify priority legal and institutional gaps
• Develop feasible reform options
• Prepare a technically sound, gender-responsive and child-rights-based legislative reform package

Throughout the assignment, the work must apply a child-rights-based, gender-responsive and survivor-centred approach, including consideration of:

• Best interests of the child and evolving capacities
• Non-discrimination, privacy, dignity, participation, accessibility, due process
• Protection against secondary victimization

Particular attention must be given to digital and technology-facilitated harms (including forms such as online sexual exploitation and abuse, grooming, sexual extortion, image-based abuse, cyberbullying and harassment, and digital-facilitated trafficking and recruitment), while ensuring the proposed framework protects all children.

Key tasks and scope of work

1. Inception, Methodology and Legal Review Framework

   • Prepare an inception report with methodology, detailed workplan, analytical framework, and proposed sequencing
   • Identify principal areas of Lebanese legislation, regulation, and institutional practice to be reviewed
   • Propose criteria for selecting comparative jurisdictions and legislative models
   • Develop a stakeholder consultation plan identifying relevant institutional and non-institutional actors
   • Identify key legal and policy questions guiding national and comparative analysis
   • Agree on review scope and comparative jurisdictions before substantive analysis

2. National Legal and Institutional Mapping and Gap Analysis

   • Conduct a comprehensive review of Lebanon’s legal, regulatory, and institutional framework relevant to protection of children from digital and technology-facilitated harms, including as relevant:
     • Child protection legislation and policies
     • Criminal law and criminal procedure
     • Sexual exploitation and abuse
     • Trafficking in persons
     • Cybercrime and technology-related offences
     • Electronic communications and digital services
     • Privacy and personal-data protection
     • Online harassment and cyberbullying
     • Online grooming and sexual extortion
     • Image-based abuse and non-consensual dissemination of intimate material
     • Digital facilitation of trafficking, exploitation, or recruitment
     • Reporting obligations and reporting mechanisms
     • Investigation and evidence-gathering
     • Victim/survivor protection, assistance, and access to remedies
     • Institutional mandates and coordination arrangements
     • Responsibilities of relevant public authorities and, where legally applicable, digital service providers or other private actors
   • Identify gaps, inconsistencies, overlaps, ambiguities, and implementation challenges
   • Determine whether gaps relate to legislation, regulation, institutional mandates, coordination, implementation, or enforcement
   • Assess whether provisions adequately address protection needs of girls and adolescent girls and other children facing heightened vulnerability or barriers to access
   • Identify potential barriers to reporting, investigation, protection, and access to justice
   • Assess whether safeguards are child-sensitive and survivor-centred
   • Clearly distinguish gaps in legislation from gaps in implementation to avoid proposing new legislation where stronger implementation or regulatory measures may suffice

3. Targeted Comparative Legal Research

   • Conduct targeted comparative review of selected international and national legislative frameworks addressing digital and technology-facilitated harms affecting children
   • Select comparative jurisdictions based on agreed criteria (including relevance to Lebanon’s legal system, experience regulating harms, institutional/enforcement relevance, applicability, alignment with human rights and child-rights standards, and gender-responsive approaches)
   • Focus comparative analysis on approximately four to six jurisdictions or legislative models, unless otherwise agreed
   • Review relevant international and regional instruments, standards, guidance, and recommendations (including those relating to children’s rights; protection from violence, exploitation, and abuse; trafficking and sexual exploitation; privacy and data protection; gender equality and violence against women and girls; and digital rights/online safety)
   • Identify transferable legislative approaches across areas such as legal definitions and scope; prohibited conduct and offences; prevention obligations; reporting mechanisms; investigation/evidentiary provisions; victim/survivor protection and support; institutional mandates and coordination; responsibilities of digital actors (where applicable); enforcement/sanctions; regulatory/oversight mechanisms; cross-border cooperation; and implementation mechanisms

4. Stakeholder Consultations and Technical Validation

   • Facilitate targeted consultations to validate analysis, understand operational realities, and obtain technical input on reform options
   • Consult relevant stakeholders as appropriate, which may include:
     • Parliamentary actors and committees
     • Concerned ministries and public institutions
     • Judicial authorities
     • Law-enforcement bodies
     • Child-protection institutions and practitioners
     • National human-rights and gender-equality institutions
     • Legal practitioners
     • Civil society organizations (including women’s rights and child-rights organizations)
     • Organizations working on digital rights, online safety, and protection
     • Academia and legal experts
     • Other relevant technical stakeholders
   • Document principal views and recommendations
   • Assess feasibility and institutional implications
   • Assess feedback against applicable international human rights, child-rights, and gender-equality standards
   • Incorporate relevant feedback into reform proposals where appropriate
   • Where appropriate and agreed, reflect children’s and adolescents’ protection experiences through existing evidence, specialist organizations, or appropriate safeguarding mechanisms rather than direct engagement that could create protection risks

5. Development and Drafting of Legislative and Regulatory Reform Options

   • Produce a Legislative and Regulatory Options Paper and prepare drafting needed to operationalize recommended reforms
   • Identify priority legal, regulatory, and institutional gaps and develop feasible reform options
   • Assess advantages/limitations and legal/institutional implications of each option
   • Distinguish legislative, regulatory, institutional, and implementation-related gaps
   • Assess implications for existing legislation and regulatory frameworks
   • Identify potential legal, procedural, and enforcement challenges
   • Assess compatibility with Lebanon’s international human rights and child-rights obligations
   • Assess implications for gender equality and the rights and protection of girls and adolescent girls
   • Recommend the most appropriate legislative and/or regulatory approach
   • Translate the recommended approach into concrete legal and regulatory texts (including drafting or amendment of relevant legislation, regulations, decrees, decisions, and other instruments as applicable)
   • Ensure draft outputs include sufficient development to support subsequent review, consultation, and consideration by relevant Lebanese authorities, and include explanatory notes where appropriate
   • Have the recommended option reviewed with the organization and the designated parliamentarian before detailed legislative drafting begins

6. Drafting of the Legislative Reform Package

   • Following agreement on the preferred approach, prepare the legislative reform package, which may include:
     • A standalone draft law
     • Amendments to one or more existing laws
     • Proposed regulatory or implementing provisions
     • A combination of the above
   • Address, as appropriate:
     • Purpose and scope; definitions
     • Prohibited conduct and offences
     • Prevention measures
     • Child-sensitive reporting mechanisms
     • Investigation and evidentiary requirements
     • Procedural safeguards
     • Victim/survivor protection, assistance, and remedies
     • Protection of privacy and confidentiality
     • Institutional mandates and responsibilities
     • Referral and coordination arrangements
     • Enforcement and sanctions
     • Oversight and accountability
     • Responsibilities of relevant digital actors, where legally appropriate
     • Cross-border cooperation, where relevant
     • Implementing/regulatory measures
     • Monitoring and review
     • Transitional or consequential provisions
   • Ensure proposed provisions are consistent with Lebanon’s constitutional and legal framework; align with applicable international human rights and child-rights standards; are gender-responsive and child-sensitive; incorporate survivor-centred safeguards; provide clear institutional responsibilities; avoid unnecessary duplication and over-criminalization; respect due process and proportionality; avoid unnecessarily broad restrictions on lawful expression or children’s access to information; and are implementable within Lebanon’s institutional context

7. Explanatory Memorandum and Finalization

   • Prepare an explanatory memorandum accompanying the legislative package, including:
     • Rationale for the reform
     • Principal gaps addressed
     • Relationship to existing legislation
     • Summary of relevant international standards and comparative practice
     • Key legislative choices
     • Institutional and implementation implications
     • Gender-responsive and child-protection considerations
     • Areas requiring subsequent regulation or implementation measures
   • Present the draft for technical review and revise based on consolidated feedback from the organization, the designated parliamentarian, and relevant stakeholders (as agreed)
   • Submit final legislative package and explanatory memorandum in Arabic and English, unless otherwise agreed

Deliverables and Timeline

Expected completion time and payment schedule:

1. Inception Report and Legal Review — Within 2 weeks of contract signature; 10% payment
2. National Legal Gap Analysis and Targeted Comparative Review (including mapping of relevant Lebanese legislation and institutions, identification of gaps/overlaps/implementation issues, gender and child-rights analysis, and comparative review of selected jurisdictions) — Within 8 weeks; 20% payment
3. Legislative Reform Options Paper — Within 12 weeks; 20% payment
4. First Draft Legislative Reform Package (agreed legislative instrument(s), including a standalone law and/or amendments/regulatory provisions as applicable, with draft explanatory notes) — Within 16 weeks; 20% payment
5. Final Legislative Reform Package and Explanatory Memorandum — Within 20 weeks; 30% payment

Workplace and Travel

• This is a home-based consultancy.
• The consultant may be required to participate in virtual and/or in-person consultations and validation meetings with relevant stakeholders, as requested by the organization and the parliamentarian.

Required Qualifications

• Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Law, International Law, Human Rights Law, Criminal Law, Technology Law, Cyber Law, or a closely related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in Law combined with additional years of relevant qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree.
• At least 7 years of progressively responsible professional experience in legal analysis, legislative drafting, legislative reform and/or legal policy development.
• Experience in drafting, reviewing, or proposing legislation/regulations/legislative amendments in Lebanon.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the Lebanese legal system, institutional architecture, and legislative process.
• Experience in at least two of the following areas:
  • child rights and child protection
  • criminal law and criminal procedure
  • cybercrime and technology law
  • privacy and personal-data protection
  • digital rights and online safety
  • gender-based violence and/or technology-facilitated violence
• Experience undertaking legal gap analyses and comparative legal research.
• Experience applying international human-rights and/or child-rights standards to national legal reform.
• Fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience facilitating consultations with government institutions, parliamentarians, judicial actors, law-enforcement authorities and/or civil society organizations is desirable.
• Experience working with the United Nations, other international organizations, or development partners is desirable.
• Experience supporting parliamentary or legislative reform processes is a strong asset.

Competencies

• Core values: Integrity; Professionalism; Respect for Diversity.
• Core competencies: Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues; Accountability; Creative Problem Solving; Effective Communication; Inclusive Collaboration; Stakeholder Engagement; Leading by Example.
• Functional competencies:
  • Excellent legal research, legal analysis, and legislative drafting skills
  • Strong knowledge of Lebanese legislation, legal institutions, and legislative processes
  • Ability to identify and distinguish legislative, regulatory, institutional, and implementation gaps
  • Strong knowledge of child-rights and child-protection legal frameworks
  • Knowledge of relevant areas of criminal law, cybercrime, digital governance, privacy, data protection, and technology-related legal frameworks
  • Understanding of gender equality, gender-based violence, and technology-facilitated forms of violence and abuse
  • Ability to apply international human-rights and child-rights standards to domestic legislative analysis
  • Demonstrated ability to undertake targeted comparative legal research and assess applicability to the Lebanese context
  • Strong analytical and policy-development skills
  • Strong facilitation, consultation, and stakeholder-engagement skills
  • Ability to communicate complex legal issues clearly to non-specialist audiences
  • Ability to produce high-quality legal and policy documents within agreed deadlines
  • Excellent drafting skills in Arabic and strong professional drafting skills in English

Notes on applications and conduct

• Applicants are expected to complete all sections of the application form, including education and employment history; incomplete applications may be disqualified.
• Selected candidates are expected to adhere to organizational policies and procedures and standards of conduct, including participation in reference and background checks.
• The organization maintains a zero-tolerance policy on conduct incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and the organization, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination.

Location

Lebanon. Home-based consultancy; virtual and/or in-person meetings may be required.