Retired Judge Orlando's focus stays on children.

Retired 17th Circuit Judge Frank Orlando has gone international.

In a recent whirlwind of global activity, he was busy zapping e-mails about the Ebola outbreak to colleagues trying to stop child slavery in Uganda; personally training interns in Geneva, Switzerland; and visiting Macedonia where young children hawk cigarettes on the streets rather than attend school.

The director of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy at the Nova Southeastern University law school, as well as a member of The Florida Bar's Commission on the Legal Needs of Children, has yet another new title that speaks to his passion to help children: He's the new director of juvenile justice with the International Network on Juvenile Justice.

Launched in 1997 by the Defence for Children International, the INJJ brings together nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and individual experts active in the field of juvenile justice. Coordinated by the DCI International Secretariat in Geneva with more than 200 partners worldwide, the mission is to promote international standards on the rights of children and juvenile justice.

Judge Orlando calls his international assignment "a new stage in my life that makes me feel good" to contribute on a global scale.

"What makes it possible for me to do this and still be connected with the law school is the fact that Nova is the most wired law school in the world," Judge Orlando said.

"All day yesterday, I was on the Internet with one of the interns going over a program that will be presented in Uganda. They are very concerned about the Ebola outbreak."

And he's been exchanging e-mails -- that are translated from English into Macedonian and vice versa -- about recommendations from the Macedonia summit on the legal rights of children he recently participated in that will be presented to their parliament.

"What stuck with me is the commitment the people in Macedonia have to learning more about helping at-risk children and the tremendous involvement of people I consider my colleagues -- other lawyers," Judge Orlando said in an interview wedged between two recent back-to-back trips to Europe.

"It made me think of all the lawyers I know who are engaged in the same kinds of things and rarely get recognized for their work."

In Macedonia, Orlando met with other judges, high-ranking police and government officials and child protection officers. There, they are grappling with too few social services and too many drugs pouring in from Albania.

He witnessed young children hawking black-market cigarettes on the streets, rather than attending school. And he was struck with the thought that in America parents struggle to keep kids in school -- while, in places like Macedonia, they struggle just to have schools for the children to attend.

He visited a juvenile facility in Macedonia that housed 23 boys, ages 14 to 18.

"All, I would venture to say, would be prosecuted as adults in our country," Judge Orlando said. "There, they recognize the value of a child, and that a child, especially an adolescent, is very different from an adult. What I said to them: 'You've done a lot of the same things we've done in America. Many countries learn from us. But in this instance, I believe our country could learn from you.'"

In Macedonia, he said, it would never enter their minds to lock up teens in adult prisons.

Too often in this country -- with large numbers of children incarcerated for nonviolent crimes as juveniles and Florida leading the way with the transfer of children to adult court -- Judge Orlando bemoans: "We have always known that children are different, but we continue the mistakes of the past."

The lesson that should be learned from America's 100 years of a separate juvenile justice system, he said, is this: "Any reform involving children is very fragile. They are vulnerable to the changing political climate and have the least say in their own defense."

Fighting for the rights of children is Judge Orlando's passion, which he also expresses through his work on a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Called the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, the project seeks to reduce the unnecessary detention of delinquent children and assure that children in the juvenile justice system receive appropriate services.

Part of his new role with the International Network on Juvenile Justice, Judge Orlando said, is to raise interest in the United States to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Though the U.S. bills itself as the world's most progressive force for human rights, Judge Orlando points out, it is one of only two countries in the world -- besides Somalia -- not to ratify what is considered by Amnesty International to be the main human rights instrument relating to children.

"It is the policy of the world to think of children as valued citizens, not possessions," Judge Orlando.

In emerging countries, he said, the challenge is to convince leaders in those countries that children do have rights.

"Here, in this country, we do recognize that children have rights. We have the policies. Are they in practice? That's another thing," Judge Orlando said. "We give lip service to protecting children's rights. Otherwise, we wouldn't have so many children in prison."

While he gains a broader global perspective, Judge Orlando knows there is still much work left to do here at home.