INTRODUCTION

When Katharina Boele-Woelki kindly invited me to speak at the 2018 CEFL Conference, she referred to the study Children on the Move: A Private International Law Perspective, published in 2017, to which I contributed with seven other authors. This research study, commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, was prepared at the request of the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, the JURI Committee. The authors worked on this paper in parallel with a second study, also at the request of the JURI Committee, Private International Law in a Context of Increasing Mobility: Challenges and Potential. In fact, these two publications are twin studies, as they supplement and cross-reference each other. But the time available for their preparation was extremely short, and our team was well aware, and made it quite clear, that these studies require further research. Pending such research, however, they seem to fill a gap and they are frequently cited.

The main common finding of the two studies is the lack of alignment between the rules and procedures of private international law (PIL) on the one hand, and those regarding migration law, including refugee and asylum law, on the other, and, not less important, a lack of coordination and cooperation between the responsible authorities in the two fields.

Two general recommendations emerge from both studies. First, greater efforts should be made to improve coordination between the two fields of law, and to ensure better communication and cooperation between the authorities responsible in these areas. Second, in those efforts, PIL should, generally, be guiding. Why? Because decisions on the right of asylum and immigration depend, more oft en than not, on the resolution of issues of private international law: whether a person is a minor or an adult; whether a marriage exists, or is or is not valid; whether a parent – child relationship exists, or is or is not valid.

This requires a focus on individuals and individual relationships, which is precisely the approach that civil law, and especially PIL, takes. By contrast, the law of migration, including refugee and asylum law, oft en concentrates on public interests, such as burden-sharing among European Union Member States, combating fraud, and other political considerations.