Family Relationships and Family Justice in Europe: Changes and Challenges

The huge diversity in family life and living arrangements across the globe has far‐reaching implications for the ways in which families are supported and family justice is administered. Given the serious concerns about the number of relationships that break down and the potentially detrimental impacts on children and their parents, it is essential to understand the triggers threatening the stability of couple relationships, including the financial stresses caused by the recent global recession and accompanying fiscal austerity. Since family relationships are central to the psychological, emotional, social, and economic well‐being of adults and children everywhere, policy makers and practitioners should collaborate across international boundaries to develop interventions that promote family well‐being, secure the best interests of children, and ensure the conditions and systems in which families can thrive.     

Innovative Family Mediation Research Initiative Embedded in the Community In Ireland

The Family Mediation Project is a not‐for‐profit means‐tested research initiative at Waterford Institute of Technology, based on an innovative family mediation model developed by Dr Roisin O’ Shea, following her Irish Research Council funded doctoral research. The project, led by W.I.T.’s Dr Sinéad Conneely (coordinator) and Dr Roisin O’ Shea (principal investigator), is test‐running the next iteration in family mediation, embedded in the community, comprising of the most effective elements sourced globally, with a particular focus on innovations in Canada, and is gathering empirical data to evidence outcomes. The final “real world” phase of the project commenced in May 2018, an exciting collaboration between voluntary, statutory agencies and a research institution to further test the effectiveness of this innovative approach on a larger scale at community level in the south Dublin area. This paper will discuss the project innovations and efficacy of the projects objectives, to provide effective mediation as quickly as possible for families and their children, within their community, by experienced family mediators, with hook‐ups and sign‐posting to trusted existing resources, such as the support services offered by the Family Resource Centres, and on‐line and face‐to‐face resources, with the court‐room as an end of pipe‐line solution or emergency forum only.     

Challenges and Changes in Dutch Family Law

Since the “Divorce Challenge” in the Netherlands, a lot of initiatives have been taken on a political level, from the judiciary and in practice, to improve the situation for children of separation. Experimental legislation is on its way to enable the development of new court procedures. One of its ideas is to introduce a so‐called family's representative. This new professional, a lawyer or mediator, can represent both parents in court or coordinate the entire divorce process, both before and after the court procedure.     

The Role,Benefits, and Concerns of Digital Technology in the Family Justice System

Digitalization is increasing across family justice systems around the world. What are the benefits? What will be the impact on professional practice and legal representation? What are the concerns for those who may be digitally disadvantaged? How much can justice itself become digital?     

The Practice of Law With LGBT‐Parent Families

In this article, I examine how a history of legal conflict has produced a constantly evolving professional identity for lawyers representing lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) clients on family matters. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 21 lawyers, I describe variation across areas of specialization, advertising, clientele, and access to professional networks. In addition, I focus on how sociopolitical and legal context shapes professional identity and practice for these lawyers, demonstrating the importance of practice location for this group of lawyers. Although interviews were conducted prior to national marriage recognition, these findings provide insight into the future development of the LGBT family law profession post‐Obergefell.     

Privacy,trust and policy-making: Challenges and responses

The authors contend that the emerging ubiquitous Information Society (aka ambient intelligence, pervasive computing, ubiquitous networking and so on) will raise many privacy and trust issues that are context dependent. These issues will pose many challenges for policy-makers and stakeholders because people's notions of privacy and trust are different and shifting. People's attitudes towards privacy and protecting their personal data can vary significantly according to differing circumstances. In addition, notions of privacy and trust are changing over time. The authors provide numerous examples of the challenges facing policy-makers and identify some possible responses, but they see a need for improvements in the policy-making process in order to deal more effectively with varying contexts. They also identify some useful policy-making tools. They conclude that the broad brush policies of the past are not likely to be adequate to deal with the new challenges and that we are probably entering an era that will require development of “micro-policies”. While the new technologies will pose many challenges, perhaps the biggest challenge of all will be to ensure coherence of these micro-policies.     

Research and standardisation in nanotechnology: evidence from Germany

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are science fields which are growing extremely dynamically. Germany occupies the top position in Europe and is only second to the US worldwide, which can be attributed to growing research promotion by the state. Based on a general conceptual framework on the role of different types of standards in the research process and technology life cycle, we argue that the market success of nanotechnology applications depends very much on the development of corresponding standards, which clarify not only terminology, measurement and testing methods, but also regulate safety and health aspects and specify interfaces. Other countries, European and international standardisation organisations have launched first initiatives rather early. However, Germany was not able to translate its excellent starting position in nanotechnology research into a leading position in standardisation initiatives, which pave the way for future commercialisation of nanotechnology and also the basis for the next generation of research activities. Based on a survey among stakeholders of German nanotechnology research, we are able not only to provide a first empirical validation of our conceptual model on the role of standards in the research process, but also to define the major problems at the interface between research and standardisation, and finally, to recommend possible options for their solution.

西部大开发与图们江经济带的崛起

西部大开发《政策措施》的颁布和实施,给边疆民族地区带来了历史机遇。图们江经济带要以此为契机,实现跨越式发展。     

制度创新与政府职能的有效转变——对温州的实证分析

制度创新、政府找到社会的“共赢点”是温州成功的关键,政府的“公共人”、“公平人”角色定位,是温州政府职能有效转变的主要体现。     

情事变更制度在与离婚相关的财产协议中的参照适用——以婚前协议为例

基于与离婚相关的财产协议本身所具有的特殊性和情事变更制度的规范意旨,在与离婚相关的财产协议中引入情事变更制度是十分必要的。《民法典》第464条第2款为在与离婚相关的财产协议中参照适用合同编的情事变更制度提供了规范基础。在参照适用情事变更制度时,需要把握与离婚相关的财产协议的家庭伦理属性及该种协议相较于一般商业交易协议的不同特点,对情事变更的构成要件和法律效果进行有针对性的法律解释。情事变更制度在参照适用于与离婚相关的财产协议时,主要存在以下值得探讨的事由类型:子女出生;一方因残疾或严重疾病丧失劳动能力;一方经济能力大幅变化。据此,可以分别针对协议中的离婚财产分割、家务劳动补偿和经济帮助条款总结出情事变更制度参照适用的可能性。