Marilyn Freeman – författare

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book begins with contributions examining the formation of childhood identity, analysing psychological and cultural perspectives on development. These provide insight into how the child’s right to preservation of their identity is currently interpreted and applied under Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and how this is interpreted and applied in international and domestic legal settings. The book highlights the likely consequences of conflict, discrimination and oppression on children and young people, revealing how the associated events and transitions, as well as those emanating from more positive foundations, often influence the evolution and integration of their identities over time. To conclude, the book suggests a range of improvements to help ensure that children’s right to identity is more frequently taken into account in the international family justice field, ultimately improving the decisions being made about vulnerable children and young people.

Children’s Right to Identity, Selfhood and International Family Law is designed for students, academics, and all professionals and practitioners in family and human rights law. Its focus on practical methodologies makes it an essential read for lawyers, judges, mediators, social workers, counsellors, NGOs, child/family support organisations, and family members whose children experience identity-impacting changes to their lives.

Discussing the repercussions of abduction from the perspectives of both abducted children and the therapeutic and family justice professionals engaged in their cases, chapters consider the contributions of the many professionals and key agencies involved in the field. Identifying the 1980 Hague Convention as the principal global instrument for dealing with child abduction, the Research Handbook traces its role, history, development and impact, alongside the mechanisms required for its effective use. Evaluating current trends, areas of concern in legal/judicial practice and various regional initiatives, it also considers alternatives to high-conflict court proceedings in international child abduction cases. The Convention’s strengths, successes, weaknesses and gaps are discussed, and the Research Handbook concludes by addressing how best to tackle the challenges in its future operation.

Interdisciplinary and accessible in approach, the contributions from renowned subject specialists will prove useful to students and scholars of human rights and family law, international law and the intersections between law and gender studies, politics and sociology. Its combination of research, policy and practice will be of value to legal practitioners working in family law alongside NGOs and central authorities active in the field.

"Coalbrookdale is a work of fiction based on the life of my ancestor Joseph Bangham, who lived in the Severn Gorge three hundred years ago. He was employed at the Coalbrookdale ironworks when Abraham Darby was perfecting the use of coal in the production of iron. These developments facilitated the mass production of iron and as the technology spread, industry thrived. This was a pivotal moment in the history of the modern world. This is a story of an ordinary family living at an extraordinary time and in the district known as the ''cradle of the Industrial Revolution''. Their lives changed fundamentally as an agricultural evolved into an industrial way of life. The book traces the story of the Bangham family as they move from Banghams Wood where they have been coppicing and producing charcoal for decades, across the Gorge to Coalbrookdale when their lives changed fundamentally, regulated not by the seasons but by the demands of the furnace. 

As with any family story there is joy as well as tragedy. The many and varied characters interact in ways which sometimes result in unintended consequences, played out against the backdrop of the often brutal 18th Century in England, when a child could be transported to America or even hanged for poaching a rabbit. As for Joseph, did he realise as he laboured at the furnace, he was involved in events that were to change the world? Would those changes be for the better? It seems that even today, we are unsure of the destination. Much has been written about this extraordinary district, but this book offers a different perspective through the lives of some of the ordinary working people who were there at the very beginning."