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In Swedish international family law, domicile (“hemvist”) is the most important connecting factor, with regard to determining the competent court and the law applicable to a dispute. This thesis aims to clarify the criteria for domicile, and other connecting factors based on a person’s residence, primarily from the point of view of Swedish international family law. Another purpose is to analyse and find explanations for the increasing importance of the domicile principle in Swedish international family law legislation and in international legislative co-operation.

The thesis contains a comparative survey of the use and meaning of the concept of domicile as connecting factor in Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular within the scope of the so called Nordic Family Law Convention and the Nordic Inheritance Convention which both are instruments of private international law.

Another purpose is to find explanations for the choice and success of habitual residence as a connecting factor in the Hague Conventions and to clarify the meaning of the expression. The concept is of crucial importance for the application of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, ratified by Sweden. The author analyses, on the basis of Swedish case law, the extent to which the Swedish courts’ interpretation of the Convention’s concept of habitual residence (“hemvist”) is in compliance with the intentions of the Hague Convention.

The thesis includes an overview of German and Swiss private international law. In these countries the domicile principle is based on two different connecting factors, namely domicile (“Wohnsitz”) and habitual residence (“gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt”).

Swedish legislation and case law plays a central role in the analysis of the thesis.