Dr. Philip D. Jaffé
Professor (Emeritus), University of Geneva & Member, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and shaped by a multicultural upbringing spanning French Guiana, New York, East Africa, and Geneva, he brings a distinctly international perspective to his work.
He pursued advanced clinical and forensic training in Switzerland and the United States, studying at the Universities of Geneva and Fribourg, Yeshiva University in New York, and Harvard University in Boston. His professional career includes several years at Bridgewater State Hospital, a maximum-security correctional psychiatric facility in Massachusetts.
Returning to Switzerland in the early 1990s, he taught clinical and forensic psychology at the University of Geneva. In 2008, he became Director of the Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch (IUKB) in Sion, where he led its new teaching and research unit dedicated to children’s rights. He subsequently helped integrate the IUKB into the University of Geneva, contributing to the creation of its Center for Children’s Rights Studies (CIDE) in 2015. He served as Director of the Center until the end of 2019 and retired in 2024.
In 2019, he was elected as Switzerland’s representative to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and was re-elected in 2023 for a second four-year term. Through this role, he advocates internationally for children’s rights, protection, and well-being.
Throughout his career, he has sought to bridge academia and practice, engaging with communities as an educator and health practitioner while advancing and promoting human rights.
