The Master thesis of one of the interns at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Ms Erika Karlsson from Sweden, was recently selected for the prestigious Familjens Jurist prize. She completed the thesis in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lund in 2011, before taking up the position of intern at the EU Delegation and the Centre for European Studies.

ANUCES hosts interns from Europe under an agreement with the European Union. Centre Director Jacqueline Lo congratulated Ms Karlsson and stated: ‘Erica’s prize confirms that EU institutions and European integration attract the interest of academically gifted young Europeans. We are very fortunate that some, like Erika, are given opportunities to familiarise themselves with Australia-EU relations’.

Each year, Swedish law firm Familjens Jurist selects four prize-winning theses from a large number of law theses nominated by each university in Sweden. Ms Karlsson’s thesis was entitled ‘Sweden’s approach to international child abduction: In the best interest of the child?’. It discusses how the 1980 Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is applied in courts in Sweden. The Convention protects children from the harmful effects of cross-border abduction.

Speaking on behalf of the selection committee, Professor Goran Lind (Uppsala University) said that the thesis ‘examined in an exemplary manner how Swedish courts have interpreted the Hague Convention’s provision on the child’s wishes in cases where abducted children have opposed their relocation’.

By studying cases handled by the courts in Sweden, the thesis found that they in most cases do not take into account the child’s wishes, and that this interpretation is not consistent with the principle of the best interests of the child and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

To read the thesis, please click here.

To learn more about the 2011 prize winners, please click here.