Does a justice system have a welfare function? If so, where does the boundary lie between justice and welfare, and where can the necessary resources and expertise be found? In a time of austerity, medical emergency, and limited public funding, this book explores the role of the family justice system and asks whether it has a function beyond decision-making in dispute resolution. Might a family justice system even help to prevent or minimise conflict as well as resolving dispute when it arises? The book is divided into 4 parts, with contributions from 22 legal scholars working across Europe, Australia, Argentina and Canada. - Part 1 looks at what constitutes a family justice system in different jurisdictions, and how a welfare element is included in the legal framework. - Part 2 looks at those engaged with a family justice system as professionals and users, and explores how far private ordering is encouraged in different countries. - Part 3 looks at new ways of working within a family justice system and raises the question of whether the move towards privatisation derives from the intrinsic value of individual autonomy and acceptance of responsibility in family disputes, or whether it is also a response to the increasing burden on the state of providing a welfare-minded family justice system. - Part 4 explores recent major changes of direction for the family justice systems of Australia, Argentina, Turkey, Spain, and Germany.

Personal status laws remain a highly politicized area of debate in the Middle East, as the arena in which the contentious issues of women's rights, religion and minority groups meet. This is especially so when it comes to divorce. In Tunisia, with the moderate Islamist party Ennahda winning the first elections following the 2011 revolution, questions of religion in public life have gained greater primacy. The country is often hailed for its progressive personal status code, seen as an exception to the practice in many other Muslim countries. Polygamy is banned, for example, and in divorce cases there is gender equality. However, Tunisia's legal system contains many gaps and leaves much room for interpretation. Bearing in mind this importance of the role of Islam in judicial courts, Maaike Voorhoeve investigates whether the more progressive, and ostensibly secular, principles enshrined in Tunisia's Personal Status Code of 1956 are in fact adhered to in divorce cases. And if not, whether judges frequently turn to the Sharia, custom or societal norms as their primary sources of guidance. Through extensive research in the Tunisian courts, Voorhoeve investigates the different types of divorce, the arguments presented to the court and the consequent legal decisions made. She focuses on the role of female judges, testing the assumption that they adjudicate in a more gender-neutral way and examining the impact they have had on Tunisian legal culture and through this, Tunisian society. Gender and Divorce Law in North Africa therefore sheds light on the wide-reaching debate throughout North Africa and the Middle East concerning the role of Islam and Sharia in the public, political, legal and private spheres. This debate, which often pits secularists against Islamists, but is in reality much more nuanced, is key in a variety of fields, including Middle East studies and Islamic law.

The Right to be Parents is the first book to provide a detailed history of how LGBT parents have turned to the courts to protect and defend their relationships with their children. Carlos A. Ball chronicles the stories of LGBT parents who, in seeking to gain legal recognition of and protection for their relationships with their children, have fundamentally changed how American law defines and regulates parenthood. To this day, some courts are still not able to look beyond sexual orientation and gender identity in cases involving LGBT parents and their children. Yet on the whole, Ball's stories are of progress and transformation: as a result of these pioneering LGBT parent litigants, the law is increasingly recognizing the wide diversity in American familial structures.

This volume contains the contributions delivered at CEFL's fifth international conference. It focuses on comparative and international family law in Europe in their respective cultural contexts. The interventions address the new Principles of European Family Law regarding Property Relations between Spouses, the proposed EU private international law regulations for spouses and registered partners for international couples and their property relations, the laws of a growing number of countries which legislate non-formalized relationships and the new developments regarding social, biological and legal parentage.

Using original empirical data and critiquing existing research, Samia Bano explores the experience of British Muslim woman who use Shari'ah councils to resolve marital disputes. She challenges the language of community rights and claims for legal autonomy in matters of family law showing how law and community can empower as well as restrict women.

The enactment of the Divorce Reform Act 1969 was a landmark moment in family law. Coming into force in 1971, it had a significant impact on legal practice and was followed by a dramatic increase in divorce rates, reflecting changes in social attitudes. This new interdisciplinary collection explores the background to the 1969 Act and its influence on law and society. Bringing together scholars from law, sociology, history, demography, and film and literature, it reflects on the changes to divorce law and practice over the past 50 years, and the changing impact of divorce on different people in society, particularly women. As such, it offers a 'biography' of this important piece of legislation, moving from its conception and birth, through its reception and development, to its imminent demise. Looking to the future, and to the new law introduced by the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, this collection suggests ways for evaluating what makes a 'good' divorce law. This brilliant collection gives insight not only into this crucial piece of legislation, but also into a key period of societal change.

This second edition collection of Legal Letters written by Attorney Andrew Agatston to Children's Advocacy Centers, child advocates and detectives builds upon the 2009 book, "The Legal Eagles of Children's Advocacy Centers: A Lawyer's Guide to Soaring in the Courtroom." It is critical for Children's Advocacy Center professionals, and others who work on behalf of children who have alleged sexual abuse, to have a thorough understanding of the legal system and the legal rules and requirements that directly affect their professional responsibilities. This book is a second collection of Legal Letters that Mr. Agatston has written to his "Legal Eagles" as part of his weekly List Serv that now has subscribers in 35 states.

The Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (also known as the Istanbul Convention) was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 7 April 2011. The Convention entered into force on 1 August 2014 and has currently been ratified by 22 states. This Convention constitutes a crucial development as regards the movement to combat gender-based violence, as it sets new legally binding standards in this area. This book provides a detailed analysis of the Convention and its potential to make an impact in relation to the specific issue of domestic violence. The book places the Istanbul Convention in context with regard to developments relating to domestic violence as a human rights issue. The background to the adoption of the Convention is examined, and the text of this instrument is analysed in detail. Comparative analysis is engaged in with reference to the duties that have been placed on states by other bodies such as the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the European Court of Human Rights. Comparisons are also drawn with the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women and with the relevant provisions of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. An in-depth examination of the advantages of the adoption of the Istanbul Convention by the Council of Europe is provided along with a detailed analysis of the challenges faced by the Convention. The book concludes with a number of brief reflections in relation to the question of whether the adoption of a UN convention on violence against women may be a possible development, and the potential such an instrument holds, in the context of domestic violence.

Part of a series offering international reviews of comparative public policy, this volume provides comparative perspectives on family law and gender bias. The topics discussed include: the concept of the natural family and the American family; gender and racial sterotype; and patriarchy in China.

The Child's Interests in Conflict addresses one of the most pressing issues of any multicultural society, namely the conflicting demands on children from minority groups or children born to parents of different cultural or religious backgrounds. What the family considers to be in the child's best interests and welfare in the studied situations is not shared by society at large. Each guided by faith, culture and tradition, society views the child to be exposed to a significant harm or risk of harm if certain traditions are followed, whereas in contrast the parents believe that their child is harmed or in harm's way if that tradition is not respected.Focusing primarily on Europe, the contributions in this book, written by internationally leading experts and with a interdisciplinary element, address situations of conflict regarding the child's upbringing and education in general, the shaping of the child's cultural or faith-based identity, underage marriages, circumcision of boys, the role of faith and culture in society's placements of children outside the care of their family, and the role of faith in cross-border child abduction and disputes over parental responsibilities. Attention is paid to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and to less well-known national case law, as well as to recent national legislation, all of which show not only the complexity of the issues discussed but also the differing ways multicultural challenges are dealt with.The authors strive to answer, inter alia, how legal systems should navigate between the competing claims and conflicting interests without forgetting the main person to be protected, namely the child; and how the scope of tolerance, recognition and autonomy should be defined.

The Principles of European Family Law drafted by the Commission on European Family Law (CEFL) contain models which may be used for the harmonization of family law in Europe. This book contains the Principles regarding Property Relations between Spouses. In these Principles, the CEFL has developed an all-inclusive set of rules for two matrimonial property regimes: the participiation in acquisitions and the community of acquistions. Both regimes have been put on an equal footing. Each matrimonial property regime, whether it functions as a default or as an optional regime is strongly connected with the rights and duties of the spouses and the possibility for them to make a marital property agreement. These issues have also been addressed by including two common Chapters on the General Rights and Duties of Spouses and on Marital Property Agreements which are to be applied regardless of which of the regimes applies.

Choice of law determines which national legal system applies to an international case. Currently many choice of law rules in the field of family law are regulated by national law. However, these national rules of the EU Member States are more and more displaced by common European rules. This book describes the changes brought by the Europeanisation of the choice of law on divorce. From the conclusions drawn in the field of divorce the concluding chapter discusses the changes of Europeanisation of international family law in a broader perspective.

Gender equality is a modern ideal, which has only recently, with the expansion of human rights and feminist discourses, become inherent to generally accepted conceptions of justice. In Islam, as in other religious traditions, the idea of equality between men and women was neither central to notions of justice nor part of the juristic landscape, and Muslim jurists did not begin to address it until the twentieth century. The personal status of Muslim men, women and children continues to be defined by understandings of Islamic law - codified and adapted by modern nation-states - that assume authority to be the natural prerogative of men, that disadvantage women and that are prone to abuse. This volume argues that effective and sustainable reform of these laws and practices requires engagement with their religious rationales from within the tradition. Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law offers a ground-breaking analysis of family law, based on fieldwork in family courts, and illuminated by insights from distinguished clerics and scholars of Islam from Morocco, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia, as well as by the experience of human rights and women's rights activists. It explores how male authority is sustained through law and court practice in different contexts, the consequences for women and the family, and the demands made by Muslim women's groups. The book argues for women's full equality before the law by re-examining the jurisprudential and theological arguments for male guardianship (qiwama, wilaya) in Islamic legal tradition. Using contemporary examples from various contexts, from Morocco to Malaysia, this volume presents an informative and vital analysis of these societies and gender relations within them. It unpicks the complex and often contradictory attitudes towards Muslim family law, and the ways in which justice and ethics are conceived in the Islamic tradition. The book offers a new framework for rethinking old formulations so as to reflect contemporary realities and understandings of justice, ethics and gender rights.

Within the European Union there is considerable diversity in morally sensitive issues like legal recognition of same-sex relationships or reproductive matters, such as abortion, assisted human reproduction (AHR) and surrogacy. States generally expressly claim recognition of such diversity and it is explicitly respected at European level, even though the (implicit) influence of European law is increasingly visible in these areas.Cross-border movement within the EU adds a new dimension to this complex picture. It implies that States are increasingly confronted by (the consequences of) one another's regimes. For example, same-sex couples residing in one EU Member State claim recognition of their marriage concluded in another Member State, or women from Member States with restrictive abortion regimes resort to States with more liberal regimes. This research explores this cross-border dimension, identifies a number of pressing questions and provides insight into the interests that are at stake in such situations.This volume firstly investigates what if any standard-setting is in place in three national jurisdictions (Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands) as well as in the relevant European jurisdictions (EU law and the ECHR) in respect of reproductive matters and legal recognition of same-sex relationships, and how this has developed over time. This analysis inter alia provides insight into what considerations and interests play or have played a role in legislative debates and case-law, in what respects the regimes studied differ, and how European law has influenced national standard-setting. It furthermore provides the necessary basis for the subsequent analysis of how the relevant jurisdictions respond to cross-border movement in these areas and how they interact. While, for example, States sometimes appear to ward off cross-border movement in these areas to protect their national moral standards, in other situations they choose to or are obliged under European law to accommodate such mobility in order to protect the interests of vulnerable parties involved. This research thereby observes and clarifies the dynamics in decision-making regarding these issues, analysing and explaining how various areas and levels of law interact.

This set of 7 volumes, originally published between 1984 and 1998, provides illuminating and practical information on Domestic Abuse. Aimed at both students and practitioners across a range of disciplines, the volumes explore topics including, provision of services for domestic abuse victims, the law, homelessness, advice for those coming into contact with violence and victims of abuse, public policy and the experience of domestic abuse victims themselves.

South African law remains relatively silent on the legal aspects of pregnancy, and legal commentary is rather scarce too. While there have been attempts to address the gaps in the law in relation to specific issues in pregnancy, these attempts have usually favoured the individual protection of the unborn at the expense of pregnant women's agency and rights, which has given rise to a tension between female reproductive autonomy and foetal interests. In Pregnancy Law in South Africa, the author explores the question of whether it is possible to regard pregnancy in law as embodying both women and the unborn and whether the pregnancy can be construed in a way that it does not come to be framed as an adversarial relationship. Pregnancy Law in South Africa focuses on the issues of prenatal substance abuse, termination of pregnancy, violence that terminates a pregnancy, and the extension of legal personhood to the unborn. The author argues that pregnancy-related issues will never be adequately resolved unless the potential for an adversarial pregnancy relationship is removed and proposes a relational approach to pregnancy, centred on fostering relationships, in order to eliminate the potential for tension. The author contends further that a relational approach encourages imaginative and constructive possibilities for law reform efforts without sacrificing women's reproductive autonomy and rights or the recognition of the unborn. Pregnancy Law in South Africa provides a sound theoretical approach to pregnancy in law and its recommendations seek to promote healthy, rights-affirming pregnancies.

The recent developments in South African law concerning the legal recognition of African customary marriages. Demonstrates how different social groups, systems of personal law and cultural or religious beliefs are constitutionally protected against any form of unfair discrimination. Aimed at lawyers, students and academics.

This book examines the strength of laws addressing four types of violence against women rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment in 196 countries from 2007 to 2010. It analyzes why these laws exist in some places and not others, and why they are stronger or weaker in places where they do exist. The authors have compiled original data that allow them to test various hypotheses related to whether international law drives the enactment of domestic legal protections. They also examine the ways in which these legal protections are related to economic, political, and social institutions, and how transnational society affects the presence and strength of these laws. The original data produced for this book make a major contribution to comparisons and analyses of gender violence and law worldwide."

This comprehensive and in-depth study on the understanding and interpretation of the child's right to survival and development provides a compact assessment of article 6(2) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in light of its drafting history, the reports of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and other relevant sources appropriate to the discipline of international human rights law.The author analyses the travaux prparatoires of the CRC and the academic work of some of its drafters. The book includes an interview with one of the drafters and explores the literature of the Committee on the Rights of the Child with respect to article 6(2) and how its understanding and interpretations of this article have developed over time. It examines the weaknesses and strengths in relation to the observations it has made and explores the legal effects of the Committee's classifications and makes suggestions for others as well.Importantly, the book also discusses the relationship between the right of the child to survival and development and his/her dignity. It provides an understanding of the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and cognitive development in the context of his/her right to survival and development. In addition, the author discusses various State obligations aiming at the enjoyment of the right to survival and development and also touches on global warming and its relationship with the right of the child to survival and development.The reader will gain an understanding of different approaches to the interpretation of human rights treaties in general, and attitudes towards the assessment of the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. He will also learn about the connection between the right to development and the economic and social rights of the child on the one hand, and the right of the child to survival and development on the other hand. Moreover, the book introduces the concept of comprehensiveness and individuality of the right of the child to survival and development and fundamentally argues that there is still more to add to the understanding and interpretations of article 6(2) of the CRC.