The Centre for Private International Law hosted the EU-funded POAM project workshops, which took place on 28 & 29 May 2019 and were organised by Principal Investigator, Dr Katarina Trimmings, Research Assistant, Dr Onyoja Momoh and Criminal Law Specialist, Dr Isla Callander (“the UK Research Team”). The POAM project is concerned with the intersection between domestic violence and parental child abduction and is a major collaboration across four jurisdictions: the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Croatia.
The workshops facilitated the exchange of knowledge and practical experience amongst esteemed judges, legal practitioners, academics and other stakeholders: charities, NGOs, the police and local authorities. The workshop opened with a series of presentations by the UK Research Team and was followed by parallel discussions across three sessions (see workshop programme available on the project website). Participants shared case studies and engaged in substantive discussions on practices across England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Focused discussions also took place in relation to the utility of the Regulation 606/2013 on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters and the Directive 2011/99/EU on the European Protection Order in the context of parental child abductions motivated by acts of domestic violence. The workshop provided valuable insights into practical experiences and the understanding of protective measures and their enforceability in 1980 Hague Convention cases involving domestic abuse.
Further information about the project and its progress across all four jurisdictions can be found on the POAM project website, events page on https://research.abdn.ac.uk/poam/