European Family Law Research Articles

The Harmonisation of Family Law: Old and New Dilemmas

Abstract: This article provides the reader with some introductory information on the newly established Commission on European Family Law (CEFL). Two important theoretical problems surrounding the harmonisation of family law are further discussed: the lack of capacity on the part of the European Union in the field of family law, and the so-called “cultural constraints” argument. Finally, two dilemmas of a more practical nature are addressed: the possibility of harmonising family law by means of binding law, and the thereto related potential of co-operation between the CEFL and the European Civil Code Project.

Interpreting Legitimacy

Legitimacy has been a key concept of Western family law for hundreds of years. The test of legitimacy determined who belonged to a family and who did not. In principle, legitimacy entitled children to maintenance and inheritance from both parental sides. Illegitimacy did not unconditionally do so. This article reflects on why legitimacy appeared as a significant part of the ecclesiastical policy and legislation from the mid-twelfth century onwards and why legitimacy could remain an indispensable part of European family law for at least seven hundred years until the second half of the nineteenth century.

Concepts of Family under EU Law - Lessons from the ECHR

Recent years have seen the European Union (EU) institutions adopting a much more proactive role in the development and application of European family law and policy. Consequently, an important body of European Court of Justice (ECJ) case law has accumulated defining what it is to be a family member and delineating the level of social entitlement available to them, particularly in the context of the free movement provisions. These legal and judicial developments have more recently been complemented by a more modest yet growing corpus of academic literature critiquing the narrowness of the EU definition of family as premised on the traditional and increasingly exclusive notion of the legally married, nuclear and economically functional model. Equally problematic, yet rarely critiqued, is the apparent conflict between the EU approach to the family and fundamental principles of human rights which have become an increasingly prominent and explicit component of EU law in recent years, (particularly since the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Union). This conflict is illustrated through a detailed comparison of the ECJ and the Strasbourg institutions' case law addressing the rights of family members in different family set‐ups. The article concludes by examining, on the one hand, the reasons behind the EU's reluctance to embrace a more liberal, realistic interpretation of the family as consistent with its human rights commitments and, on the other, argues in favour of adopting an approach akin to that of the European Convention on Human Rights institutions.

The European family and canon Law

Alors que la loi générale de l'église imposait des limitations à la possibilité de produire un héritier par son opposition à la polygamie et au divorce suivi de remariage et en imposant une importante restriction à l'endogamie, ces mêmes limitations s'étaient dévelopées dans le contexte du mariage – un soucis majeur de l'église – plutôt que dans celui de la famille. A partir d'autres points de vue, les canonistes essayaient d'aider la continuation de la famille par leur soutien de la légitimation. On ne rencontre aucune opposition à l'adoption dans la loi générale de l'Eglise: elle présume l'adoption. L'article suggère que dans la recherche de facteurs qui ont contribué à façonner la famille européenne, il faudrait porter plus d'intérêt au rôle joué par l'Eglise dans l'accentuation croissante du droit de l'individu d'opter pour le célibat ou pour le mariage, et dans ce dernier cas, le droit de choisir un(e) conjoint(e)