Understanding Family Law

This essential guide enables readers to easily and quickly grasp the essential themes and issues surrounding family law. As part of the Understanding Law Series, the work:

• Provides students with a concise yet intellectually challenging overview of family law
• Approaches the subject from an historical, comparative, philosophical and ethical perspective that gives readers a good rounded and critical knowledge on which to build
• Examines the concept of rights, responsibilities, welfare, protection, consent and parentage
• Covers a huge range of issues such as reproduction, gay marriage, children’s rights, violence and abuse, equality issues, father’s concerns, the elderly, freedom and consent, and the impact on the medically assisted
• Looks at the current legal system and the different methods for reaching a resolution including mediation and other forms of ADR
• Examines the impact of cultural pluralism, and the importance of feminism, religion and secularism
• Considers the role social services, paediatrics and the police play
• Covers all key legislation and case law, including the ECHR and the UN Convention on the Rights of The Child