Nationals experts

Algérie 

Nahas Mahieddin

Argentina 

Marisa Herrera

and Aida Kemelmajer            

Universidad de Buenos Aires  

Marisa Herrera, Doctor of Law for the University of Buenos Aires. National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina in topics of human rights in right of family, infancy, adolescence and sexual diversity. Teacher of the Faculty of Law of the University of Buenos Aires and of the University of Palermo, Argentina. Editor of the Second Book on " Family relations " of the Civil Code and Commercial Argentine 2015.

Universidad de Mendoza

Australia

Lisa Young

Murdoch University

Professor Lisa Young has been practising, teaching and researching in family law for nearly 30 years. She is currently the lead author of one of Australia’s leading treatises on family law (Family Law in Australia), co-editor of Children and the Law in Australia, Editor of Australia’s leading family law journal (the Australian Journal of Family Law) and the annual Australian contributor to the International Society of Family Lawyer’s Annual Survey. Lisa was responsible for bringing one of Australia’s leading relocation cases to the High Court pro bono and has worked for nearly 18 years as a decision maker for the Australian Child Support department. Lisa, who is the Associate Dean of Research at the School of Law at Murdoch University, writes extensively and broadly in the area of family law, including parenting disputes, property matters, family violence, and spousal and child maintenance.

Belgium

Charlotte Declercq

UHasselt

Prof. Dr. Charlotte Declerck lectures Family and Succession Law at Hasselt University (Belgium) and is member of the Brussels Bar. She obtained her PhD in 2008 on Literary and Artistic Property in Family Property Law under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Em. Walter Pintens. She was assistant at the Institute for Family Property Law of the Catholic University of Leuven, from 2003 to 2010. Charlotte Declerck is the author of multiple books and articles on family and succession law as well as intellectual property law.

Canada

Michelle Giroux

Vanessa Gruben

Université d’Ottawa

Michelle Giroux, LL.L. (Ottawa), M.A. Medical Law and Ethics (London, UK) is Full Professor at the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section, at the University of Ottawa and Member of the Québec Bar and of the Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory on the Rights of the Child and of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa. Professor Giroux is a specialist in family and persons law, medical law and bioethics.

Vanessa Gruben, B.Sc.H. (Queen’s University), LL.B. (Ottawa), LL.M. (Columbia), is an Associate Professor and a member of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Common Law. Her research focuses on the legal and ethical aspects of assisted human reproduction and organ donation as well as the regulation of health professionals. She has advised the Ontario government on various laws and policies relating to assisted human reproduction. Vanessa teaches Property Law, Public Health Law, Introduction to Health Law and a seminar on Access to Health Care. In addition to her scholarly work, she is a member of the Health Services Appeal and Review Board and the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board and has acted as legal counsel to Amnesty International at various tribunals and courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Paul Robain Namegabe Rugarabura

England and Wales

Andrew Hayward

University of Durham 

Andy’s research focuses on the historical and modern regulation of adult relationships. In particular, he is interested in the property consequences generated by formalised (marriage and civil partnership) and non-formalised (cohabitation and home-sharing) relationships.  His work in this area on 'family property' explores the process of 'familialisation of property law' and how the concept of family property finds expression in ownership disputes over the family home.

France

Laurence Francoz-Terminal

Université Jean Moulin Lyon III 

Deputy director of the Edouard Lambert Institute of Comparative Law
European, International and Comparative Law Reasearch Team (EDIEC-EA 4185)
She specialises in French and comparative child, family and individual person’s law that she teaches in Licence and Master degree. Her research axes focus on legal capacity issues, and more particularly child’s legal capacity ones, and their connections with child, family and criminal law.
She has recently published on the introduction of same sex-marriage in France, the future of the pacs after the legalization of same-sex marriage, the guardianship of minors and children’s hearings by the judge in civil proceedings.
She has regular contacts with legal practitioners and social workers in continuing education programs and since 2009 she’s a lay magistrate in the Lyon’s youth court.

Germany

Tobias Helms

Philipps-Universität Marburg

Tobias Helms, born 1968, dr. juris 1998, awarded the venia legendi for Civil Law, Civil Procedure, Private International Law and Comparative Law by the Faculty of Law of the University of Freiburg i.Br. 2006, Professsor of law at the Faculty of Law, University of Marburg since 2006. He is working in the field of family law, international private law and comparative law. Responsible editor of the family law journal „Das Standesamt“ (StAZ) Co-editor of the family law journal „Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht“ (FamRZ).

Ireland

Brian Tobin

NUI Galway

Brian Tobin holds LL.B, LL.M and Ph.D degrees from Trinity College Dublin. His Ph.D thesis, completed in 2014, examines the socio-legal assimilation of same-sex family units in the Republic of Ireland. Dr Tobin’s research interests are in the areas of child and family law, with a particular focus on the legal recognition of contemporary family forms and the position of children born via donor-assisted human reproduction and surrogacy arrangements. In 2014, he appeared before an Irish parliamentary committee to provide expert legal opinion on the first piece of legislation designed to regulate donor-assisted human reproduction in Ireland. He has published in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law and Irish Jurist.

Italy

Stefania Stefanelli

Universita di Perugia 

Researcher of Private Law at the Univesity of Perugia, Lecturer of Private Law and Family Law.
Also member of the Ethics Committee of the University of Perugia, of editorial board of the Reviews “Diritto e processo” and “Ciberspazio e diritto”; member of referee board of various Reviews

Japan

Lisa Oshima

Université de Niigata

Lisa Oshima is Associate Professor of Law at Faculty of Law, Niigata University. Before joining Niigata University in April 2012, she was Assistant Professor of Law at Graduate School of Law, Hokkaido University. She holds an LL.D.(2010) from Hokkaido University, and her dissertation subject (in the process of publication) is La notion de ≪mariage légal≫ au Japon (1) : étude comparative avec le droit français She has also published articles and book chapters on the issues of family law, with particular focus on the comparative study on legal protection of various forms of partnership, such as le PACS and le concubinage.

Lithuania

Vida Petrylaite

Vilnius University 

Vida Petrylaite was born in 29 August 1980. Her academic achievements: in 2002 – Bachelor’s Degree obtained from Vilnius University, Faculty of Philosophy (Bachelor thesis “Social Policy of the European Union: the Equal Treatment of Women and Men); in 2006 – Masters of Law Degree obtained from Vilnius University, Faculty of Law (Master’s thesis “Fundamentals of Coordination of Social Security Systems in the European Union”); in 2012 – Doctors Degree obtained from Vilnius University, Faculty of Law (Doctoral thesis “Main Principles of Social Security Law”).
Vida Petrylaite in the period of 2003–2006 worked in the Ministry of Social Security and Labour. From 2006 to 2008 was engaged in the activity as assistant of advocate at the private law firm. From 2008 to 2016 she was the director of the Public Institution ‘Vilnius University Legal Clinic’ providing pro-bonus legal aid where she is also supervisor of law student’s vocational training.
From 2006 and recently Vida Petrylaite is lecturer of the Private Law Department of the Faculty of Law. From 2016 she also started advocate’s activity in the private law firm.
Since the beginning of her academic and scientific activity, she does researches in the sphere of Lithuanian and international social security, labour law and family law. Research works of Vida Petrylaite are focused on problematic issues of social security law, reconciliation of social security, work and family responsibilities as well as guarantees of migrant workers in the European Union.

Netherlands

Wilbert Kolkman

University of Groningen

Wilbert Kolkman (1973) is full professor of Legal Science and Family Propery Law at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His teaching and research focus mainly on the fields of family law, inheritance law and matrimonial property law. Wilbert is joint editor-in-chief of a number of periodicals and of a series on notarial law: Family Law, Estate Settlement, Real Property Law and Company Law. He is author in the Asser-series (Part 1: Family Law) and he is visiting professor of Family Law at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where he teaches regularly.

Apart from his work at the University, he has a position as advisor at Elan Civil Law Notaries and he is a justice in the Court of Appeal at Arnhem.

Romania

Emese Florian

University of Cluj-Napoca

Emese Florian is Professor of Family Law at the Faculty of Law, “Babeș-Bolyai University”, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
She graduated the Faculty of Law of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University in 1984, and holds a Ph.D. in Legal Sciences since 1997, with the thesis "Res judicata in civil matters" (scientific coordinator: Professor Ion Deleanu).
Since 1991, is part of the teaching staff of the Department of Private Law and, starting from 1994, she is head of the Department of Family Law (bachelor’s degree); she also holds courses concerning the Protection of the Vulnerable Person (master’s degree).

Spain

Josep Ferrer

Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona

Josep Ferrer y Riba (born, 1960) is Vicerrector for the Internationalization of the University and Professor of Private Law at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Catalonia). Former Dean of the UPF School of Law. Member of the Catalan Law Comission for the Codification of Catalan Civil Law. Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Göttingen (Germany), Yale (USA), Bologna (Italy) and Leuven (Belgium). His teaching and writing has mainly focused on child and family law, elder law, nonprofit organizations, and comparative private law.

Sweden

Jane Stoll

Luleå University of Technology

Switzerland

Alexandra Jungo

Universität Freiburg

Dr. Alexandra Jungo has been a Full Professor of Civil Law at the University of Fribourg for
over 30 years. Besides teaching and researching Alexandra Jungo gives conferences, writes
legal opinions and regularly publishes books and articles in the field of Family and Succession
Law.
Apart from her scientific work at the University, Alexandra is Co-Chair of the CAS Family Law
Switzerland, member of the Board of the Association for Judge education and training
(academie de la magistrature), member of the Board of Management of the Family Institute
in Fribourg, expert for the Federal Office of Justice and different Parlamental Commissions
for the revision of family and succession law, as well as editor of the Swiss Law Journals
„FamPra.ch“, „Successio“ and „recht“.
She is also a former extraordinary judge of the Swiss federal Supreme Court and a former
Vice-President of Fribourg University.
Fribourg/Switzerland, 6 June 2017

USA

Deborah L. Forman

Whittier Law School

Deborah L. Forman is Professor of Law Emeritus at Whittier Law School, in Costa Mesa, California, J. Allan Cook & Mary Schalling Cook Children’s Rights Scholar. Professor Forman earned her A.B. from Brown University and her J.D. from Stanford Law School. She joined Whittier in 1990 and served as Director of the Whittier Law School Center for Children’s Rights from 1999-2007. Her courses include Family Law, Contemporary Problems in Family Law, and Torts. Professor Forman is the author of Every Parent’s Guide to the Law (Harcourt Brace 1997) and numerous articles. Her scholarship today focuses primarily on assisted reproduction. Professor Forman also serves as Of Counsel to the International Fertility Law Group, where she has specialized in counseling physicians on informed consent issues and drafting forms that reflect the unique issues faced by fertility clinics and their patients.