International migration and family life: is there still need for protection of religious personal statutes?

Öffentlicher Vortrag zu internationaler Migration, Familienleben und Religionsfreiheit von Prof. Dr. Marie-Claire Foblets, Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung am 26.11.2019, 16.15 Uhr, 3.B47, Universität Luzern.

The impact of international migration to Europe on family life has preoccupied politicians, practitioners, and scholars for the last 60 years, but its importance increased dramatically with the influx of refugees in 2015. 

Against this background, this presentation focuses on two questions: First, how can European law deal with the dilemmas presented by family forms that challenge European legal statutes? On the one hand, humanitarian principles counsel allowing families to continue in forms that pre-dated their migration; on the other hand, too liberal an interpretation of familial norms may give rise to conflicts with restrictive migration policies. Second, how can the religious dimensions of the family form be accommodated by European civil law without generating legal consequences that conflict with other aspects of European law? One example is religious marriages that are not registered in the civil law of the European country of residence. The presentation will demonstrate that these concerns have become particularly acute in the majority of European states today.

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