AMICABLE is an EU co-funded project which has the overarching aim of improving the situation of children in cross-border parental responsibility disputes and child abduction cases within the EU. The project started in March 2019 and is running for a period of 24 months.

The AMICABLE project aims to provide assistance for the cross-border recognition and enforceability of mediated family agreements in the EU. It also seeks to promote a tried-and-tested model for incorporating mediation into international child abduction proceedings in the EU. It is hoped that the results of the AMICABLE project will thus help to promote mediation in cross-border family disputes within the EU.

The AMICABLE project’s specific two objectives are:

⭐     The creation of a legal “roadmap” in form of a Best Practice Tool for judges, legal practitioners and mediators which will assist parents with the cross-border enforceability and recognition of mediated family agreements. An EU general Best Practice Tool as well as four country-specific tools for Spain, Poland, Italy and Germany have been developed in the course of this project (in EN and the relevant national language).

⭐     The introduction of a Best Practice Model for incorporating mediation, inititated by the judge, into the tight six-week timeframe of child abduction proceedings under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention. Such a model is already operative in Germany, the UK and in the Netherlands. The project’s objective is to facilitate the exchange of information and mutual learning and to explore how the model could be introduced in Spain, Poland and in Italy.

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