Students sitting in the grass at the Frescati campus, Stockholm University. Foto: Eva Dalin

In 2022, SULaw hosted its 6th summer programme to record numbers. The programme, which stretches over six weeks, divided into three sessions of two weeks, started in the summer of 2017 and was until 2019 co-hosted with the Stockholm Business School. Besides offering quality education through a blend of law courses at both basic and advanced level, SULaw’s summer programme is also designed to introduce students to Stockholm and its culture, by inviting them to partake in a social programme where they will, among others, visit local landmarks and meet local legal practitioners. The programme was moved online in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, but the easing of the pandemic restrictions allowing, it returned in hybrid form in 2022, with five courses online and seven on campus.

As many such summer programmes were cancelled altogether during the pandemic, and many foreign students remained unable to travel because of restrictions in their home country, interest in SULaw’s programme soared from 2020: from 20 students in 2017, the programme had already reached 80 students by 2019, but jumped to over 100 in 2020 and a further 130 in 2021. For its return on campus in 2022, the programme saw a record number of attendees: 145 students, from 35 partner universities across 25 countries, divided almost equally between online and on campus classes. SULaw also joined Stockholm University’s solidarity effort with the universities and the civilian population of Ukraine by enrolling several Ukrainian law students in the programme.

Whether this trend in attendance continues in 2023 when the programme is planned to make a full return to campus is difficult to predict, but the Office of International Affairs at SULaw is already working on the preparations for next year, in particular its new course offer. A new series of alumni portraits will also be progressively published on the programme page.

A highly enriching experience

The 2022 edition of the programme was met with enthusiasm by students and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. For Christina Meinert, a student at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, the programme was “a highly enriching experience wherein [she] was able to exchange ideas and participate in stimulating and rigorous academic discussions with sharp legal minds from around the globe”. Christina studied a course in International Law, Peace and Post-Conflict Transitions and particularly enjoyed the mock peace negotiation she had the opportunity to partake in.

Cato Huisman, a student from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, was especially inspired by a meeting with Gatujuristerna, or “the Street Lawyers”, a Swedish student-led organisation providing free legal advice to the homeless and socially vulnerable. For Cato, the programme was an incredibly enriching experience that also allowed her to explore subjects relevant to her upcoming LL.M. studies.