New Book on Cross-Border Child Relocation in the EU

Olga Ceran (Leiden University) has kindly prepared this presentation of her recent book titled Cross-Border Child Relocation in the EU – The Dynamics of Europeanisation published by Intersentia in 2024 in its European Family Law series.

This book is the first monograph to investigate cross-border child relocation as a unique legal issue in the EU context.

The book focuses on different dimensions of Europeanisation of cross-border child relocation, understood broadly. It analyses the demands posed by the European legal framework (both regarding fundamental rights and free movement rights) on child relocation laws and harmonisation prospects in the field. Considering the limited nature of the EU’s competence, it simultaneously proposes a conceptualisation of EU law’s influences from a constructivist perspective. It suggests how EU law might shift the scope of autonomy granted to EU citizens and hence lead to new dilemmas regarding the assessment of children’s and adults’ interests in child relocation cases. The book then closes with an examination of published child relocation judgments in Germany, Poland, and England and Wales (before and around Brexit). It analyses how national judges occasionally draw from different EU legal features, finding however that EU law does not (yet) seem to fundamentally challenge the established child relocation doctrines.

Three chapters specifically touch upon private international law issues. Chapter 3 assesses the prospects of harmonisation of child relocation law in the EU, also in reference to potential future revisions of the Brussels IIter Regulation. Chapter 6 discusses how the EU private international law framework (among others) might play a role in the resolution of child relocation disputes, but also draws attention to the fact that it is normatively inflicted in a particular way and might feed into people’s expectations and courts’ contextual assessments. In reference to that, Chapter 7 qualitatively analyses different national encounters (or the lack thereof) with EU law, including EU private international law, and their normative consequences in the three selected jurisdictions.