The Stockholm Centre for the Rights of the Child cordially invites you to the book launch of the third volume in the series Stockhom Studies in Child Law and Children's Rights:

Children, Autonomy and the Courts: Beyond the Right to be Heard

By Aoife Daly

Aoife Daly, Ph.D., Trinity College Dublin, is Senior Lecturer in Law at the School of Law and Social Justice and the European Children’s Rights Unit at the University of Liverpool. She writes, teaches and advocates extensively on children’s rights.

In this seminar, Aoife Daly will discuss her book which argues that where courts decide children’s best interests (for example about parental contact) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ‘right to be heard’ is insufficient, and autonomy should instead be the focus. Global law and practice indicate that children are regularly denied due process rights in their own best interest proceedings and find their wishes easily overridden. It is argued that a children’s autonomy principle, respecting children’s wishes unless significant harm would likely result, would ensure greater support for children in proceedings, and greater obligations on adults to engage in transparent decision-making. This book is a call for a reconceptualisation of the status of children in a key area of children’s rights. 

Discussant: Titti Mattsson

Titti Mattsson, Professor of Public Law, is working as a researcher and teacher in public law, social welfare law, and family law at the Faculty of Law at Lund University. The connecting theme of her research is the governance of welfare state issues and she is one of the most renowned children’s rights experts in Sweden.

Please RSVP by 15^th of January to vera.yllner@juridicum.su.se

+ 46 (0)8-162049

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The seminar will be followed by a reception with light refreshments.