The Family, Law and Society series brings together, in a five volume collection, the most significant articles and papers in key aspects of family law from an international perspective. Over the past two decades virtually all areas of family law have undergone major doctrinal and theoretical changes - from the definition of marriage and the financial and parenting consequences of divorce, to the legal construction of parenthood. An equally important set of changes has transformed the resolution of family disputes. Inter-disciplinary in its approach, this series not only draws together key law texts, but also scholarly articles from the fields of sociology, social administration, politics, and psychology. Taken together, these five volumes provide an invaluable resource to students and scholars around the world interested in all aspects of family law.

Same-sex marriage has become one of the defining social issues in contemporary U.S. politics. State court decisions finding in favor of same-sex relationship equality claims have been central to the issue's ascent from nowhere to near the top of the national political agenda. Same Sex Marriage in the United States tells the story of the legal and cultural shift, its backlash, and how it has evolved over the past 15 years. There is a clear story of jurisprudential evolution with regards to same-sex marriage from Hawaii, through Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, and, remarkably, Iowa in 2009. This book aids in a classroom examination of the legal, political, and social developments surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States. While books about same-sex marriage have proliferated in recent years, few, if any, have provided a clear and comprehensive account of the litigation for same-sex marriage, and its successes and failures, as this book does.

The International Society of Family Law is an independent, international, and non-political scholarly association dedicated to the study, research and discussion of family law and related disciplines. The Society's membership currently includes professors, lecturers, scholars, teachers, and researchers from more than 50 different countries, offering a unique opportunity for networking within a truly international family law community.The International Survey of Family Law is the annual review of the International Society of Family Law. It brings together reliable and clearly structured insights into the latest and most notable developments in family law from all around the globe. Chapters are prepared by an international team of selected experts in the field, usually covering 20 or more jurisdictions in each edition.

Topical and compelling, this volume provides an excellent re-evaluation of the 'best interests' test in the healthcare arena; the ways in which it has developed, the inherent difficulties in its use and its interpretation in legal cases concerning the medical care of children.

Comprehensively covering both the English and Scottish position within the context of the European Convention of human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the author examines a wide range of healthcare situations, from the commonly occurring to the unusual, offering a detailed analysis of legislation, case law, cases and their implications.

It includes discussions on:

• the extent to which a child's body can be examined, operated on and affected by medicines, devices or procedures intended to bring about medical change
• the appropriate scope of parental choice and authority and at what stage of their development children should be allowed to make their own decisions
• the response to situations where the interests of children may be in conflict - the cases of conjoined twins or the donation of organs to siblings.

This work is a key resource for postgraduates and researchers working and studying in the fields of law, healthcare and medicine.

Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of the state and federal courts in furthering the goals of the gay and lesbian community. Unlike Mezey's earlier book, Queers in Court, this book evaluates the extent to which litigation is effective in advancing equal rights for gay families-families in which at least one member is gay-as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations such as the Boy Scouts along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases, and assesses the degree to which the outcome of the litigation is explained by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics.

Domestic Violence, Family Law and School discusses the ways in which domestic violence can impact on children's lives at pre-school and school. Disputes over parental responsibility, living arrangements or child contact can create difficulties not just for the child of disputing parents, but for all children at preschool or school, as well as for staff. This book uncovers new research on an under-explored area of children's lives and social work with vulnerable children and is shaped by a comparative lens that brings both similarities and differences between England, Wales and Sweden into focus. A theoretical framework for analyses of how welfare systems tackle domestic violence is elaborated and lessons for practice that can be drawn from the findings presented are highlighted.

Learn what to do when allegations of child sexual abuse become part of the child custody process Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is an invaluable resource for forensic mental health professionals involved with conducting custody evaluations in family court proceedings. Each of the book's five chapters reviews an important component of the evaluation process when allegations of child sexual abuse have been made, moving beyond the description of each parent's psychological functioning and parenting capacity, the identity and needs of the child, and the parent's ability to meet those needs. The book's contributors examine the organizational structure of a child custody evaluation, the meanings of sexual behaviors demonstrated by children, descriptions of sex offenders assessment instruments, the usefulness of Rorschach examinations, and observations from presiding judges. Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is one of the few resources to tackle this difficult forensic area. This unique book examines the myths concerning the occurrence of child sexual abuse (CSA) and victim characteristics, the basic principles of a sex offender evaluation, and the ways evaluators craft their evaluations and testimony to assist the Court. Contributors also look at the relationship of sexual behavior to sexual abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, family sexuality, behavior problems, reporter characteristics, and age and gender of the child. Topics covered in Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse include: macro-interview structures for the child interview psychological evaluation and testimony the Court's expectations within the order for evaluation a model order for custody evaluations exploring CSA statistics a forensic evaluation model data collection, interpretation, and communication of results and much more Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is essential as a professional aid in conducting and analyzing child custody evaluations in family court proceedings.

Learn what to do when allegations of child sexual abuse become part of the child custody process Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is an invaluable resource for forensic mental health professionals involved with conducting custody evaluations in family court proceedings. Each of the book's five chapters reviews an important component of the evaluation process when allegations of child sexual abuse have been made, moving beyond the description of each parent's psychological functioning and parenting capacity, the identity and needs of the child, and the parent's ability to meet those needs. The book's contributors examine the organizational structure of a child custody evaluation, the meanings of sexual behaviors demonstrated by children, descriptions of sex offenders assessment instruments, the usefulness of Rorschach examinations, and observations from presiding judges. Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is one of the few resources to tackle this difficult forensic area. This unique book examines the myths concerning the occurrence of child sexual abuse (CSA) and victim characteristics, the basic principles of a sex offender evaluation, and the ways evaluators craft their evaluations and testimony to assist the Court. Contributors also look at the relationship of sexual behavior to sexual abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, family sexuality, behavior problems, reporter characteristics, and age and gender of the child. Topics covered in Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse include: macro-interview structures for the child interview psychological evaluation and testimony the Court's expectations within the order for evaluation a model order for custody evaluations exploring CSA statistics a forensic evaluation model data collection, interpretation, and communication of results and much more Child Custody Litigation: Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse is essential as a professional aid in conducting and analyzing child custody evaluations in family court proceedings.

An intriguing insight into the politics of gender, family and religion in Elizabethan England. The marriage of Charles and Elizabeth Forth (c. 1582-1593) offers an intriguing insight into the politics of gender, family and religion in Elizabethan England. In this story, resourceful women play leading roles, sometimes circumventing or subverting patriarchal authority, qualifying our accepted image of the Elizabethan propertied family. Elizabeth's impoverished Catholic father took no part in making her marriage. Instead, Elizabeth and her mother seemingly enticed Charles, sixteen-year-old heir of a solidly Protestant Suffolk JP, into a clandestine match. When the marriage began to fail, Elizabeth turned to her mother and sisters as her principal sources of support and showed greater guile, determination and resilience than her husband in what became a protracted contest. Charles, convinced of his wife's infidelity, finally left England to travel as a voluntary exile, only to die abroad. Elizabeth and her kinsman Henry Jerningham emerged as victors in subsequent prolonged litigation with Charles's father. Drawing on extensive testimony and decrees in the most fully recorded case of its kind heard by the Court of Requests, as well as a wide range of other material from local record offices and the National Archives, this readable micro-history unravels the tangled story of two very different young people. It establishes the background of the marriage and its failure in the contrasting histories of the families involved and sets the story in its larger political and religious contexts. Anyone with an interest in Elizabethan politics, law and religion, or the family, women and gender, will find it fascinating. RALPH HOULBROOKE is Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading.

Cohabiting couples and those entering religious-only marriages all too often end up with inadequate legal protection when the relationship ends. Yet, despite this shared experience, the linkages and overlaps between these two groups have largely been ignored in the legal literature. Based on wide-ranging empirical studies, this timely book brings together scholars working in both areas to explore the complexities of the law, the different ways in which individuals experience and navigate the existing legal framework and the potential solutions for reform. Illuminating pressing implications for social policy, this is an invaluable resource for policy makers, practitioners, researchers and students of family law.

This collection canvasses the growing literature on international family law, extending from the traditional private law governing cross-border families, to multi-lateral treaties on subjects such as child abduction and intercountry adoption, to the framework of international human rights law that shapes domestic and international family law systems. Volume I explores the internationalization of family law and considers adult relationships, whilst Volume II examines parent-child relationships. All of the articles are tied together in the Editor's introductory essay, which provides a useful and insightful overview. Edited by a leading authority in the field, this collection will prove to be an invaluable and essential research tool for all international family law academics, researchers and practitioners.

Are pregnant women entitled to the same rights of self-determination and bodily integrity as other adults? This is the fundamental question underlying recent high-profile legal interventions in situations when pregnant women and healthcare staff do not agree on management options or appropriate behaviour. Courts on both sides of the Atlantic have sometimes answered that they are not, and the law has at times been manipulated to enforce compliance with medical recommendations. This is the first book of its kind to offer a comprehensive assessment of healthcare law as applied to the unique situation of pregnancy. Drawing on case material from both the UK and the USA, it describes the trend towards 'policing pregnancy' and explores the emergence of the concept of 'maternal-foetal conflict' - and why, in the author's view, this would be more appropriately labelled 'obstetric conflict'. Suggestions are made for alternative approaches that better safeguard the overall well-being of pregnant women and their future children.

In recent years there has been heightened interest in the clinical and legal management of families in which children resist contact with one parent and become aligned with the other following divorce. Families affected by these dynamics require disproportionate resources and time from mental health and legal professionals, and cases require a specialized clinical approach. Traditional models of individual and family therapy are not designed to address these issues, and strategies and resources for mental health and legal professionals have been extremely limited. Overcoming Parent-Child Contact Problems describes interventions for families experiencing a high conflict divorce impasse where a child is resisting contact with a parent. It examines in detail one such intervention, the Overcoming Barriers approach, involving the entire family and combining psycho-education and clinical intervention. The book is divided into two parts: Part I presents an overview of parental alienation, including clinical approaches and a critical analysis of the many challenges associated with traditional outpatient family-based interventions. Part II presents the Overcoming Barriers approach, describing core aspects of the intervention and ways to adapt its clinical techniques to outpatient practice. Overcoming Parent-Child Contact Problems is geared toward mental health clinicians and legal professionals who work with families in high conflict and where a child resists visitation with a parent.

The essays in this collection consider the fundamental concepts of property and obligations in law. Ideas of property and of obligations are central, organising concepts within law but are nevertheless liable to fragmentation and esoteric development when applied in particular contexts. The contributors examine this phenomenon in three ways. First, in the interaction of land law, housing law and family law to the acquisition of rights in the home. Secondly, by considering how human rights norms will impact on the development of property and obligations law in the future. Thirdly, by reconsidering the historical development of many of these notions in English law. What emerges is an understanding that when the concepts of property and obligations are uprooted from their conceptual soil, they take on very different characteristics.

This book provides a stimulating, carefully planned introduction to the key issues and debates within family law from some of the leading authorities within their field. It is designed both as a self standing book focusing on the key issues in the subject, and as a supplement to more detailed textbooks on the subject. It is essential reading for anybody studying or practising in the field of family law. Each chapter is concerned with one of the main areas of family law (such as adoption, domestic violence, marrriage and divorce), and covers a range of themes, including the public/private divide, balancing the interests of family members, moral values and family law, cost and the legal system, and the enforcement of family law. The book reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the debates on family law, and the difficult social and political issues which these have raised.

No federal law in the United States requires that egg or sperm donors or recipients exchange any information with the offspring that result from the donation. Donors typically enter into contracts with fertility clinics or sperm banks which promise them anonymity. The parents may know the donor's hair color, height, IQ, college, and profession; they may even have heard the donor's voice. But they don't know the donor's name, medical history, or other information that might play a key role in a child's development. And, until recently, donor-conceived offspring typically didn't know that one of their biological parents was a donor. But the secrecy surrounding the use of donor eggs and sperm is changing. And as it does, increasing numbers of parents and donor-conceived offspring are searching for others who share the same biological heritage. When donors, recipients, and "donor kids" find each other, they create new forms of families that exist outside of the law. The New Kinship details how families are made and how bonds are created between families in the brave new world of reproductive technology. Naomi Cahn, a nationally-recognized expert on reproductive technology and the law, shows how these new kinship bonds dramatically exemplify the ongoing cultural change in how we think about family. The issues Cahn explores in this book will resonate with anyone-and everyone-who has struggled with questions of how to define themselves in connection with their own biological, legal, or social families.

Feminist Perspectives on Child Law is a collection of interdisciplinary socio-legal essays which explore the complex relationship between childhood,gender and the law. Drawing on a wide range of feminist and critical theories and empirical research, these original essays challenge the gender neutrality of law; they explore the shifting constructions of childhood by law, legal practice and popular culture; and they provide critical and timely insights into the complex relationship between adults and children. The essays go beyond the traditional boundaries of child law within the law school curriculum and within legal practice by addressing a wide range of issues, such as health, criminal justice, education, sexuality and domestic violence. By approaching these issues in innovative ways, the essays question the impact of gender on social and cultural understandings of childhood and on contemporary interpretations of child welfare and give voice to the different choices and experiences of male and female children.

*Presents a user-friendly wealth of useable, practical, and viable malpractice solutions *Explains in-depth advice on avoiding malpractice claims and their negative consequences for doctors in every field *Offers a valuable resource of precise and practical strategies to prepare for depositions, court testimony, and a doctor's defense in the event of litigation

This book of essays by legal scholars from the United Kingdom, Eire, Israel and Palestine explores the extent to which the recognition of the concept of children's rights is affected by adherence to religious, cultural and ethnic traditions. The aim is twofold: first, to illuminate the interface between internationally-agreed norms of conduct regarding children and national and cultural determination to preserve traditional approaches; and secondly, to reflect upon the conflicts within societies between different cultural and religious groups in their attempts to determine whether 'liberal/secular' or 'conservative/religious' norms predominate in attitudes to children's upbringing. This is the first collection of papers covering and comparing the UK and Israeli/Palestinian jurisdictions. The particular blends of social, religious and cultural diversity in both regions, mingled with the political factors operating as well, render these jurisdictions of special interest as case-studies in the reception of 'western/liberal' norms and values. Moreover, Israel and Palestine, despite their manifestly different cultures as compared with Britain, have been influenced by the colonial legacy of the common law, rendering this particular east-west comparison of special interest.

Many adopted people today try to find information about their origins and search for birth family members.

Based on a large-scale research study, the authors Liz Trinder, Julia Feast and David Howe have drawn on the real-life experience of adopted people who have searched for, and had a reunion with, birth relatives. "The Adoption Reunion Handbook" combines comprehensive and practical step-by-step guidance and advice on: how to begin what to expect emotionally the legal framework finding names and addresses how to set up a reunion making the reunion work long term rejection and reunion breakdown further help and advice.

This 'how to' guide is essential for everyone involved, particularly those considering searching for information on their birth relatives. It will also be of use to birth parents, adoptive parents, adoption charities, social workers, psychologists and counsellors.

The numbers of women undergoing Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) treatments have risen steadily, yet they remain largely outside the scope of equality and employment law protection while undergoing treatment. Assisted Reproduction, Discrimination, and the Law examines this gap in UK law, with reference to EU law as appropriate, and argues that new conceptions of equality are necessary. Drawing from the literature on multidimensional and intersectional discrimination, it is argued that an intersectionality approach offers a more useful analytical framework to extend protection to those engaged in ART treatments. Drawing from Schiek's intersectional nodes model, the book critically examines two alternative interpretations of existing protected characteristics, namely infertility as a disability, with reference to the social model of disability and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006, and redefining the boundaries of pregnancy and/or sex discrimination, with reference to attempts to extend associative discrimination to pregnancy. Comparisons are drawn with the US, where infertility has been recognised as a disability under the American's with Disabilities Act 1990 and as a pregnancy-related condition under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act 1978. A specific right to paid time off work to undergo treatment is also proposed, drawing comparisons with the US Family and Medical Leave Act 1993 and the existing UK work-family rights framework. It is argued that the reinterpretations of equality law and the rights proposed here are not only conceptually possible, but could practically be achieved with minor, but significant, amendments to existing legislation.

Compares today's same-sex marriage movement to the experiences of black people in the mid-nineteenth century. The staggering string of victories by the gay rights movement's campaign for marriage equality raises questions not only about how gay people have been able to successfully deploy marriage to elevate their social and legal reputation, but also what kind of freedom and equality the ability to marry can mobilize. Wedlocked turns to history to compare today's same-sex marriage movement to the experiences of newly emancipated black people in the mid-nineteenth century, when they were able to legally marry for the first time. Maintaining that the transition to greater freedom was both wondrous and perilous for newly emancipated people, Katherine Franke relates stories of former slaves' involvements with marriage and draws lessons that serve as cautionary tales for today's marriage rights movements. While "be careful what you wish for" is a prominent theme, they also teach us how the rights-bearing subject is inevitably shaped by the very rights they bear, often in ways that reinforce racialized gender norms and stereotypes. Franke further illuminates how the racialization of same-sex marriage has redounded to the benefit of the gay rights movement while contributing to the ongoing subordination of people of color and the diminishing reproductive rights of women. Like same-sex couples today, freed African-American men and women experienced a shift in status from outlaws to in-laws, from living outside the law to finding their private lives organized by law and state licensure. Their experiences teach us the potential and the perils of being subject to legal regulation: rights-and specifically the right to marriage-can both burden and set you free.

Michelson's analysis of almost 150,000 divorce trials reveals routine and egregious violations of China's own laws upholding the freedom of divorce, gender equality, and the protection of women's physical security. Using 'big data' computational techniques to scrutinize cases covering 2009-2016 from all 252 basic-level courts in two Chinese provinces, Henan and Zhejiang, Michelson reveals that women have borne the brunt of a dramatic intensification since the mid-2000s of a decades-long practice of denying divorce requests. This book takes the reader upstream to the institutional sources of China's clampdown on divorce and downstream to its devastating and highly gendered human toll, showing how judges in an overburdened court system clear their oppressive dockets at the expense of women's lawful rights and interests. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese courts, judicial decision-making, family law, gender violence, and the limits and possibilities of the globalization of law.This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Originally introduced as a form of social welfare with near-universal eligibility, legal aid in the UK is now framed as a benefit external to the legal system and understood in primarily economic terms. This book is the first to evaluate the recent reforms of UK legal aid from a social policy perspective and assess their impact on family law courts and advocacy. Written by experts in the field, it focuses on the rise in people representing their own legal case and argues that the reforms effectively 'delawyerise' disputes, producing a more inquisitorial justice system and impacting the litigants, court system, staff and process. Arguing for a more holistic concept of the reforms, the book will be of relevance to students, academics, policy-makers, judges, campaigners and social workers, not just in England and Wales, but in other jurisdictions instituting cuts to their legal aid budgets, such as Australia, Scotland, France, and the Netherlands.

Families in Europe are increasingly shaped by the mobility of persons and multicultural backgrounds. This book is focusing on the protection of children in cross-border situations. What are the fundamental rights of children in transnational families, what is in their 'best interest', and how can their rights be safeguarded? There is much controversy on these rights and the accompanying uncertainty has resulted in considerable practical difficulties for those trying to implement them. In order to provide a clearer scope and insights into the nature of children's fundamental rights and their best interests, this book examines solutions provided by both EU and international law to the questions raised by the increasing incidence of transnational families as regards the protection of minors. It covers both substantive and conflict-of-laws rules. Differences in the substantive family laws of Member States still prevent an effective protection of the child or its family unit. This includes cases of migration, asylum, forced marriage, kafalah, but also rainbow families. Further, the role of human rights (mutual recognition of status and surrogacy agreements, adoption) and procedural rights (child abduction, Brussels II bis recast) in cross-border cases must be considered carefully. Fundamental Rights and the Best Interest of the Child in Transnational Families is a timely work on the implementation of the child's interests in the EU and covers the most relevant topics emerging from the rapid internationalisation of child and family law and from the increased mobility of families.