Frederik Swennen – författare

Editors Frederik Swennen, Elise Goossens and Tine Van Hof recognise the multiplicity of family constellations in the 21st century and the subsequent need for family law to recalibrate. Chapter authors explore a variety of subjects, such as nontraditional adult relationships, the role of surrogacy, the division of shared labour between parents, and parental responsibility with respect to children’s rights in the digital age. The book offers invaluable insights into the global academic endeavour to rethink law’s families and family law. Ultimately, the book acknowledges that family law is at a crossroads between the concept of the normative family and the actuality of ‘doing family’.

This book is a vital resource for academics and students in family law, gender law and private international law. Its incisive exploration of family dynamics is also of interest to legal practitioners, social policymakers and students of sociology, social policy, psychology and anthropology.

This volume presents global and comparative perspectives on the perpetual pendular movement of family law between status and contract. It contributes to the topical academic debate on ‘family law exceptionalism’ by exploring the blurred lines between public law, private law and family law, and sheds light on the many shades of grey that exist. The contributions focus on both substantive and procedural family law on parents and children and on life partners, with particular attention for contractual arrangements of family formations and of conflict resolution. The hypothesis underlying all contributions was the trend towards contractualisation of family law. A convergent research outcome resulting from the comparison of national reports was the ambivalent position of family law in legal systems worldwide. That comparison shows that, whereas family law is clearly moving towards contract with regard to old family formations, the contrary is true for new family formations. The movement towards contract is rarely considered to be contractualisation pur sang, with civil effect. The movement towards status, finally, does not necessarily witness ‘family law exceptionalism’ vis-à-vis private law, in view of the increasing State interventionism in private law relations in general. In sum, as the volume shows, the high permeability of the demarcations between the State, the family and the market impedes a categorial approach.

This volume is based on the general and selected national reports on the topic “Contractualisation of Family Law” that were presented at the XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna in July 2014.