Best Interests of the Child - Biography 1 | Page 3

His work now focuses mainly on safeguarding children’s rights in intercountry
adoption and alternative care, and it was in relation to these issues in
particular that he began examining more closely the ramifications of the
importance given to “the best interests of the child” in a human rights
context.

Ankie VANDEKERCKHOVE
Ankie Vandekerckhove studied Law and Criminology at the Ghent
University where she graduated in 1987. She was involved as a
researcher at the Ghent Centre for Children’s Rights at that same
university, working on issues like Juvenile Justice, Minors and the Police
and the legal status of minors. After that she worked at the Flemish
public agency ‘Child and Family’ as a policy advisor on children’s rights
and general family law issues. She was also one of the volunteers of
the Ghent Children’s Rights Shop. Between 1998 and 2009 she was the
first Flemish Children’s Rights Commissioner. During this time she was
actively involved in ENOC (chair and bureau member), the European
Network of Ombudspersons for Children. After that she worked as a
policy advisor at the Flemish Intercountry Adoption Authority for a while
before joining the Ghent VBJK, centre for Innovation in the Early Years.
Since she finished her commissioner’s mandate she has also been an
independent children’s rights advisor, working for the Council of
Europe (e.g. technical expert on the Child Friendly Justice Guidelines),
the EU (e.g. peer reviewing children’s rights in Croatia and Serbia), Unicef
(e.g. coaching the staff of the Serbian Commissioner for Equality).

Regína JENSDÓTTIR
Regína Jensdóttir is of Icelandic nationality and holds a law degree from
the University of Iceland where she specialised in human rights and a
post graduate degree (D.E.A.) from the University of Strasbourg in
international public law.

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