Welcome to the E-Learning Course

Protecting the Child

In an increasingly mobile European society, there is a commensurate increase in couples from different member states. Whenever a relationship breaks, things can get complicated in case spouses have different nationalities. These dramatic family situations sometimes lead to international abductions. Parental child abduction has an undoubtedly significant harmful impact on the child, the parent left-behind but also the taking parent. To ensure that taking parents do not benefit from child abduction, the 1980 Hague Convention was ratified by 77 states and completed by the Brussels IIa Regulation. But practice shows that there are still many hurdles within the judicial procedures.

This e-Learning Course is designed to qualify practitioners dealing with cases of parental cross-border child abduction to protect the best interest and welfare of children within the legal system through improved cross-border cooperation and the integration of mediation. It is based on the exchange during the European conference for family justice practitioners by family justice practitioners to improve cooperation in cases of parental child abduction (May 25th to 27th, 2016), which has been attended by more than 90 legal practitioners among them 27 judges applying the 1980 Hague Convention and Brussels IIa regulation.

The course focuses less on the knowledge of the Hague Convention and the Brussels IIa regulations but rather on the cultural and soft aspects that occur in practice. Hence, the results of the conference are not presented as final conclusions but as stimulation for ongoing exchange and discussion. The e-learning course is seeking to re-state, re-think, re-frame knowledge, to enhance understanding of the critical elements of international child abduction cases not completely covered by the Hague Convention and Brussels IIa Regulation. The course is designed to encourage exchange of experience and case-related cooperation in child abduction.