Families Across Borders | law, policy, news and views
Visitation and Custody Issues and Military Personnel
The Uniform Law Commission (formerly known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws) has appointed a drafting committee to “prepare an act that provides standards and procedures for resolving visitation and custody issues affecting military personnel and their families, which may include resolution of matters in intrastate, interstate, and international contexts.” Professor [...]
Same-Sex Marriage in Africa
Although South Africa has recognized same-sex marriages since the Civil Union Act in 2006, gay and lesbian relationships are the subject of significant controversy elsewhere in Africa. News reports in the past few days have addressed arrests of gay couples in Malawi, see Barry Bearak, “Same-Sex Couple Stirs Fears of a ‘Gay Agenda’” (NYT Feb. 14) and in [...]
Families Across Borders: The Hague Children’s Conventions and the Case for International Family Law in the United States
Here’s the abstract for my article, published in the January 2010 issue of the Florida Law Review, and available here in pdf format: In our globalized world, as families form and dissolve across international borders, domestic family law does not adequately address the needs of parents and children with ties to multiple legal systems. For [...]
Immigration and Marriage
According to the New York Times, more than 3.2 million noncitizens are married to U.S. citizens, more than double the number in 1980. This table breaks down the numbers between men and women and the native countries of the noncitizen spouses. Noncitizen spouses from Mexico, the Caribbean,Central America and Africa are somewhat more likely to be men, and [...]
Have a date for the Lunar New Year?
This NYT piece by Dan Levin, ” Wanted: Rental Boyfriend for Lunar New Year,” suggests that one result of the Chinese ”one child” policy has been to increase the pressure that young Chinese men and women feel to have a date to bring home with them when they visit family for the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival.
Conditions Deteriorating for Children in Haiti
Beyond the ongoing story of the group from the U.S. arrested for trying to take Haitian children to the Dominican Republic, news accounts have focused attention on the increasingly desperate circumstances of children in Haiti in need of medical care and those on the streets and in orphanages. In the New York Times, see Ian Urbina, “Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of [...]
Adoption Policy Conference in New York
The annual Adoption Policy Conference at New York Law School, set for March 5, 2010, will focus on “Permanency for Children,” including panels on the Haitian orphan situation and immigration issues and children’s rights. The conference is presented by The Center for Adoption Policy, The Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law School, The Congressional Coalition on [...]
New Issue: International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family
Advance access to the April 2010 issue of the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family is now available online. The issue includes these articles: Paul Borghs and Bart Eeckhout on LGB Rights in Belgium, 1999–2007: A Historical Survey of a Velvet Revolution: Liz Trinder, Alan Firth, and Christopher Jenks,‘So Presumably Things Have Moved [...]
Haiti: Orphans and Trafficking
Lots of media outlets are covering the story of the ten Americans arrested on January 29 for trying to leave Haiti with 33 children they believed or claimed to be orphans. For those following the story, there is useful information in this New York Times story by Ginger Thompson: “Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself” [...]
