News from the Research Group on law in Islamic countries

In 2017, the Law to Combat Child Marriage came into force in Germany, preventing minors in Germany from entering into a marriage and rendering without effect marriages concluded by minors abroad. This law is now being subject to constitutional scrutiny. A team of academics led by Nadjma Yassari and Ralf Michaels has authored a comparative assessment for the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) that examines the phenomenon of early marriage in the context of various legal systems and cultures. more

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Nadjma Yassari, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Research Group "Changes in God’s Law – An Inner-Islamic Comparison of Family and Succession Laws" at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, was in September 2020 appointed by the Federal Foreign Office to the German Federal Government’s Civil Advisory Board on Crisis Prevention. more

Do Middle Eastern countries have structures for the protection and care of parentless children that are comparable with adoption? In their recently published anthology “Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children”, the volume editors PD Dr. Nadjma Yassari, Leader of the Research Group on law in Islamic countries at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law; Dr. Lena-Maria Möller, Senior Research Fellow in the research group; and Marie-Claude Najm, Professor at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon, pursue this question. more

In Algerian law the term Kafāla refers to a court-ordered assignment of child custody and guardianship. In its decision from 26 March 2019, the European Court of Justice assessed this legal institution with respect to the EU Directive on the freedom of movement. more

In her article “Family Law in the GCC and the Best Interests of the Child: The Multiple Meanings of a Vague Legal Concept”, Dr. Lena-Maria Möller, senior research fellow in the Institute’s research group on the law of Islamic countries, investigates the degree to which child law mirrors the social transformations witnessed in the Arab Gulf region. With the article Lena-Maria Möller presents findings from a research project that in 2015 received grant funding from the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. more