Tim Holappa

Short presentation

I have a PhD in Public Law and am a Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law at the Department of Law, Uppsala University. My research focuses primarily on legal issues related to the national realization of social and economic human rights. I have dealt with issues such as the right to housing, children's right to an adequate standard of living, children's rights in urban planning and society's protection against child abuse.

Biography

I hold a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) in Public Law and am a Senior Lecturer in administrative law with a focus on social law at the Department of Law, Uppsala University. My research primarily concerns legal issues related to the national implementation of social and economic human rights, including children’s rights. Among other things, I have addressed questions regarding the right to housing, children’s right to an adequate standard of living, children’s rights in urban planning, and society’s protection against harm to children.

My research spans several areas of administrative law, and I have approached legal questions from various theoretical and methodological perspectives. In addition to traditional legal (doctrinal) research, I have on several occasions used empirical methods in my studies. I primarily teach administrative law and social law in Term Course 6 of the Law Programme, as well as law in the Social Work Programme. Together with Associate Professor Daniel Hedlund, I am course director for the compulsory courses Rätt och socialt arbete – Introduktionskurs and Rätt och socialt arbete – Socialrätt in the Social Work Programme.

At present, I am involved in three research projects. The first concerns the intersection between children’s right to an adequate standard of living and child welfare services, focusing on how social services should address child poverty, and is carried out together with Associate Professor David Pålsson, Professor Stefan Wiklund, and Professor Pernilla Leviner (all at Stockholm University). The second addresses the legal regulation of children’s play environments. The third concerns children’s right to an adequate standard of living.

My interest in the national implementation of social and economic human rights is reflected in my doctoral dissertation, Rätten till bostad i det sociala skyddsnätet: En rättsvetenskaplig studie om enskildas rättigheter och det allmännas ansvar (Faculty of Law, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 2023). In the dissertation, I use the right to adequate housing as a human right as a point of departure for the analysis of how this right is legally realised in Sweden. The focus lies on analysing the implementation of the right to housing within the national social safety net. This framework covers issues related to social insurance law, municipal law, and the responsibilities of social services. Methodologically, the dissertation draws on Kaarlo Tuori’s theory of critical legal positivism. While primarily legal doctrinal, the dissertation also includes analyses of guidelines as well as reports, inquiries, and decisions from two municipalities.

I have also addressed the right to housing in other publications, for example the chapter Rätten till bostad, Sverige och folkrätten – en rättslig kommentar, co-authored with Professor Anna-Sara Lind (published in Bengtsson, Bo, Holdo, Markus & Holmqvist, Emma, Allas rätt till bostad: Marknadens begränsningar och samhällets ansvar, Daidalos, 2022, pp. 37–52).

Children’s right to an adequate standard of living is a recurring theme in my research. The results of these studies have been published in several publications, including the chapter Barns rätt till social trygghet och skälig levnadsstandard (published in Karin Åhman, Pernilla Leviner & Kavot Zillén (eds.), Barnkonventionen i praktiken: rättsliga utmaningar och möjligheter, Norstedts Juridik AB, Stockholm, 2020, pp. 200–221), as well as the articles Barns villkorade rätt till skälig levnadsstandard – om rättsligt osynliggörande av barn i ärenden om ekonomiskt bistånd (Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift 2022 2, May 2022, pp. 239–264), Child Rights without Substance? – Swedish Public Welfare and the Invisibility of Children in Economic Support Cases (in Adami, Rebecca, Kaldal, Anna & Aspán, Margareta (eds.) (2023), The Rights of the Child: Legal, Political and Ethical Challenges, Brill), and Fattigdom, social barnavård och barns rättigheter – en rättsvetenskaplig analys (Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift, 31(3–4), pp. 317–335), all co-authored with Professor Pernilla Leviner (Stockholm University).

During 2024–2025, I carried out a postdoctoral project at the Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. The project aimed to contribute knowledge about the significance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for planning under the Planning and Building Act. I conducted three sub-studies. The first was a legal doctrinal study of the relationship between the Convention on the Rights of the Child as Swedish law and the Planning and Building Act (see Barns rättigheter i fysisk planering. Om förhållandet mellan barnkonventionen och plan- och bygglagen, Juridisk tidskrift, No. 4 2024/25). The second was a comparative legal study analysing the regulation of children’s rights in physical planning in Sweden and Norway (see Barns rättigheter i svensk och norsk planeringslagstiftning – en komparativ studie, Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift, 2/2025). The third was a qualitative empirical study of how 15 municipalities take children’s rights into account in detailed development planning. The implementation and results of the project are summarised in a report (Mot ett barnrättsperspektiv i fysisk planering: En rättsvetenskaplig studie om barnkonventionen vid planläggning enligt plan- och bygglagen, KTH, 2025).

In 2025, I was, together with Assistant Professor Emelie Kankaanpää Thell and Professor Pernilla Leviner, editor of the anthology Barnkonventionen i svensk rätt: Genomslag i lagstiftning och rättstillämpning (Norstedts Juridik, 2025). In the anthology, 18 legal scholars discuss the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Swedish law five years after its incorporation. In addition to serving as editor, I contributed the chapter Laglighetsprövning som ett medel för att genomdriva barns rättigheter, co-authored with Senior Lecturer Åsa Örnberg (Stockholm University). In this chapter, we examine how the Convention on the Rights of the Child should be taken into account in cases where the legality of municipal decisions is challenged in court by a municipal resident.

Together with Associate Professor Therése Fridström Montoya, I am also editor of the fifth revised edition of the book Juridik för socialt arbete (Gleerups, 2025). I also contribute a chapter on social assistance in the book.

I have also, on several occasions, published case comments, opinion pieces, and other popular science writings. See, for example, OOm socialnämndens olika roller som biståndsgivare och hyresvärd – En kommentar till JO:s beslut den 18 maj 2017, dnr 416-2016 (Nordisk socialrättslig tidskrift No. 17–18.2018), Motstridiga utvecklingsspår i regleringen av svensk socialtjänst – reflektioner i ljuset av förslaget om ny socialtjänstlag (Nordisk socialrättslig tidskrift No. 41–42.2025), Hur trångbott är skäligt? – En kommentar till ändringen av Socialstyrelsens allmänna råd avseende trångboddhet (co-authored with PhD candidate Matilda Sandberg, Nordisk socialrättslig tidskrift No. 35–36.2023), HFD 2021 ref. 46. Om ansvarig kommun enligt socialtjänstlagen efter att mottagande av nyanländ skett genom tillhandahållande av bostad i en annan kommun (Förvaltningsrättslig tidskrift, No. 2/2022), Barns rätt till bostad: om det sociala skyddsnätets gränser och behovet att ta barns rätt på allvar (Barnrättsbloggen, 2024), Barnkonventionen och ekonomiskt utsatta barn (Barnrättsbloggen, 2020), and Glöm inte barnen – om bosättningslagens konsekvenser för barnfamiljers boende (Barnrättsbloggen, 2018).