About LEPCA

The Lawyers in Europe focusing on international Parental Child Abduction (LEPCA) Conference addresses on legal professionals who deal with the subject of International Parental Child Abduction and preventive measures.

The European Conference will be the first gathering where family lawyers and barristers of all European countries meet and confer with each other.

The objective of the project is to learn from best practices, exchange ideas and create a platform of specialised parental child abduction lawyers within the European Union.

To gain an insight into the domestic legal practices a survey will be carried out. The research focuses on prevention, mediation and the judicial practices in parental child abduction cases in each European member state under the regulation and the convention. This knowledge is valuable and necessary to gain an insight into the way The 1980 Hague Convention and the European legislation regarding parental child abduction works and how it is applied on a daily basis. The results gained from the preliminary survey will be reflected in the workshops at the conference. The outcome of the survey and the conference will be published in a final report which will be presented to the European Commission.

The conference will last three days. During two days the participants can listen, debate and join workshops addressing the different cross-border mediations and the role of the parental child abduction lawyer. The main objective is to discuss mutual issues and make contact with each other. Another aim is to develop a European platform of professional parental child abduction lawyers and lawyers/barristers who are also active as cross-border mediators.