Sarah-Devorah Poot wins the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2019
On 10 December Sarah-Devorah Poot won the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2019 for her thesis on child-friendly judgments.
The prize for the best master’s thesis in the field of children’s rights is awarded every year by Defence for Children and the Department of Child Law of Leiden University. Professor Jaap Doek, chairman of the jury: “Sarah-Devorah has submitted a very good and engaging thesis discussing the increasing attention for child-friendly judgments. It is a thorough scientific piece of work with an especially strong empirical component, in which both children and judges were asked for their opinion.”
Child-friendly judgments
Sarah-Devorah, in her winning thesis ‘The rise of child-friendly judgments’ (original title in Dutch: ‘In de kinderschoenen. Onderzoek naar kindvriendelijke uitspraken in de Nederlandse civiele rechtspraktijk’), first investigated what the possible reasons are for writing child-friendly judgments. She concludes that among others, these can be found in various national and international provisions, including the right of the child to participation as included in article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The empirical component of the thesis shows that improvements are still needed in order to ensure that the current child-friendly judgments are, in fact, completely child-friendly. To this end, concrete recommendations are made.
Six nominees
The winning thesis was selected from six nominees. The second and third place were for the thesis ‘Protecting children’s privacy on the Internet’ (original title in Dutch: ‘De bescherming van het privéleven van kinderen op het Internet’) by Dylan Ramos Guerreiro and ‘Legal Representation as a Critical Aspect of the Realization of the Child’s Right to Be Heard’ by Caterina Tempesta, respectively.
Trip to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Sarah-Devorah’s thesis was rewarded with a prize of €500 to be spent as she chooses and an organized trip to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. Before the thesis prize was awarded, the audience was welcomed by professor Ton Liefaard, vice-dean of the Faculty of Law and UNICEF professor of Children’s Rights at Leiden University. Afterwards, dr. Yannick van den Brink gave a lecture which was titled ‘International Children’s Rights and Youth Justice. Recent developments and topical issues concerning children in conflict with the law’.
More information
Click here for more information concerning the award ceremony of the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2019.
Download the (Dutch) thesis ‘In de kinderschoenen. Onderzoek naar kindvriendelijke uitspraken in de Nederlandse civiele rechtspraktijk’.