International Family Law

At St Pauls Chambers, Counsel of all levels have many years of experience in dealing with Child Abduction and Children cases with an international element at all Court levels, including the High Court of Justice.

Some of the cases that members have dealt with have involved cross-jurisdictional issues between France, other European countries, and Pakistan, and the inherent jurisdiction of the English Courts.  It is the duty of any English Court under its inherent jurisdiction to ensure that a child who is the subject of proceedings is ‘protected and properly taken care of’.

Members of St Pauls Chambers also have experience in cases where children have been abducted from the United Kingdom, and cases where the child has never set foot on United Kingdom soil where the English Courts have tried to assert jurisdiction wrongly.

Counsel are familiar with Brussels II revised convention cases and all case law. We have successfully argued that Articles 9 (continuing jurisdiction of the child’s former habitual residence), 10 and 11 (wrongful removal or detention and return) cannot be said to apply to a child who has never set foot on British soil.

Article 17, which imposes an obligation upon a Member State to critically examine its own jurisdiction in a case before it with an international element, has been successfully deployed, alongside all of the complex history of case law, involving cases such as Mercredi v Chaffe (2011) 2 FLR 515.