ABSTRACT
Cultural and religious constraints tend to pop up in cross-border family law cases, governed by the rules of private international law. This discipline of law strives at promoting cross-border justice between individuals by coordinating legal systems claims to adjudicate the interests at stake. More recently, this discipline has also been described as a system of law governing conflicts between civilizations or conflicts between cultures. In cross-border cases, in particular when the persons have their origin in states with religion-based personal laws, the states of origin often demand full compliance with their religiously coordinated family laws, also when the persons concerned reside abroad. European case law concerning multicultural cross-border family cases demonstrates that numerous and, from the national court's perspective, unusual legal issues need to be addressed before the competent court can finally decide upon the subject matter of the dispute. Judges and lawyers, in contrast, appear reluctant to participate in any public discussion on how religion relates to law.
