UCL Discovery

Abstract

Under French Private International Law, personal status has traditionally included all issues of family law and individual status. But this rather wide scope is now being increasingly cut down. The category of personal status is now usually broken up into more specific questions – divorce, filiation, maintenance obligations etc., each provided with their own connecting factor. Besides, rules of conflicts are somewhat dismissed by EU legislation and the European Convention on Human Rights in favour of a more substantive approach, directly guaranteeing the application of a common set of values instead of a particular law. The aim of the thesis is to suggest a possible rediscovery of personal status as a useful and coherent legal category. It therefore explores the impact of human rights and EU Law on the reasoning of Private International Law and Comparative Law. The solutions suggested apply to international family relations. The issues of registered partnerships, international adoption and abduction cases, divorce and marriage are addressed in depth both from a Private International Law and a (mainly French) domestic perspective.