Jessica Kohls is First American Law Student to Participate in EUROScholars
Program Description
Although private international law rules are able to solve many of the problems associated with the recovery of child maintenance in cross-border situations, these solutions only serve to deal with half of the problem. A possible alternative is to create a separate European child maintenance system for situations. In attempting to create such a system, one must undertake comparative substantive law research in a variety of European and non-European jurisdictions chosen on the basis of geographical, historical, socio-economic and legal factors. In researching the federal system of the United States of America, it is of great importance that any research is up-to-date, accurate and well-documented. The research findings would then be able to form the basis for a comparative research project with a European jurisdiction of choice.
Jessica L. Kohls, a third-year law student from Topeka, Kansas, will travel to Utrecht, the Netherlands, to participate in an in-depth research program known as EUROScholars. For Kohls, the program runs from August 2008 to February 2009.
Her research is titled, Maintenance in Europe: A Child Maintenance System for Europe?
"I will work closely with Dr. Ian Curry-Sumner on a comparative child maintenance scheme between the American system and the laws in the Netherlands," said Kohls. "My research will culminate in a co-authored article with Dr. Curry-Sumner, to be published in the Utrecht Law Review, and I will orally defend my findings to two separate groups of the Law Faculty of the University of Utrecht.
"I will also take courses in the Dutch language as well as a Comparative Methodology course taught at the University of Utrecht," she said.
For students interested in discovering their potential for a research career, the EUROScholar program offers unique opportunities to work as a junior researcher in a research project. The program is available to outstanding and motivated advanced undergraduate, honors, or (post) graduate students with a strong interest in an academic/research career with a GPA of 3.4 or higher.
The objectives of the EUROScholars program are to give students the challenge of conducting original research at the cutting edge of human knowledge and promote interactions with scholars through an immersion in European research opportunities in the academic environment. Participants learn about scientific reasoning, research methods, theoretical principles related to the research area, and scholarly communication. By finalizing the results of their research projects in papers of publishable quality, they will also have improved their writing and presentation skills.
"I will be the first American law student to participate in this program," said Kohls. "I hope to continue on to an LL.M. in International Human Rights and Criminal Justice at the University of Utrecht, starting in 2009. Ultimately, I'd like to work with the United Nations or related nongovernmental organizations in the field of human rights."
Posted June 2, 2008
