Hague Conference on Private Law (HCCH)

Gérardine Goh Escolar is First Secretary at the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). Her portfolios span family law and child protection, and international legal cooperation. She has primary responsibility over, among others, the 1980 HCCH Child Abduction and 1996 HCCH Child Protection Conventions. Dr Goh Escolar was previously in practice, acting as counsel, advocate and consultant in international litigation and arbitration proceedings, first with a specialist international law boutique, and then with a top-tier global law firm headquartered in Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Prior to that, she was Legal Advisor to the President of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, and principal legal officer in the chambers of a Judge at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Dr Goh Escolar founded and acted as CEO of a not-for-profit company, teaching theatre and stagecraft to at-risk children and children engaged in disciplinary issues at school and with the law. She was also part of a team that constructed a school for a rural community in Mashan, Guangzhou (PR China), and has lectured on international child rights and cross-border child protection at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels.

Federal Office of Justice, Germany Central Authority Germany

studied law in Bonn and - after his legal clerkship in Cologne - in Edinburgh, Scotland. After working as a lawyer in the field of intellectual property law in Munich, he joined the Federal Office of Justice in 2009 as a consultant in Section II 3, the German Central Authority for International Childhood Conflicts. After 3 years, he moved for about one year to another department of the Federal Office of Justice and then to the Federal Central Office for International Adoption. Since November 2015, he has headed Division II 3 "International Custody, Child Abduction, Child and Adult Protection Matters".

Hague Liaison Judge (IHNJ) and European Judicial Network Judge (EJN), Germany

is a family court judge at the Local Court of Hamm since 1996. She is responsible for international family conflicts pending at Hamm District Court, which is the centralized court for the District of Hamm Court of Appeals. Martina Erb-Klünemann is a network judge in the European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters (EJN) and in the International Hague Network of Judges (IHNJ) as well as co-chair of the Association of International Family Judges (AIFJ). In her position as chair of the working group for the implementation of mediation into court proceedings, she participated in the development of structures concerning this topic. She has dealt with around 200 Hague return cases as deciding judge. In many of them mediation took place. She is member of the advisory council of MiKK. Since 2008 she is the chair of the annual conferences of the specialized German judges.She publishes regularly on international family law and on mediation in cross-border family court proceedings. In addition, she runs Europe-wide training courses on cross-border family law and mediation in cross-border family conflicts.

Public Prosecutor

Katarzyna Salwa is a public prosecutor in the District Prosecutor's Office in Wrocław, delegated to the Ministry of Justice. She began her work by conducting general criminal cases and economic crimes. Later,she specialised in cases concerning crime to the detriment of children and offences against sexual liberty. At that time a large part of her professional activity focused on civil and family matters, where as a prosecutor she reported on her involvement in family court proceedings, especially where there was a need to protect children's rights. Since her delegation to the Ministry of Justice, she has been working in the Department of International Family Proceedings, where she mainly deals as the Polish central authority in cases of parental abduction and cross-border custody cases and coordinates cooperation between Polish and foreign courts,via the central authorities of these countries.

Hague Liaison Judge (IHNJ), Poland

Since 1999 judge  in various courts in family, criminal land register departments. Since 2008 judge in the District Court in Piaseczno Family Law Department. Since 2013 Network Judge for the International Hague Network of Judges (contact point for Poland).CONDUCTED TRAININGS AND LECTURES:December 2014  lecture at the Children's Health Center in Warsaw on "Proceedings before the Court in the event of a threat to the well-being of a child".September 2015 Conference organized by the Committee for the Protection of Children's Rights, lecture on "Aspects of safeguarding the best interests of the child in court proceedings in cases of parental conflict".May 2016 lecture at a conference organized by the Ministry of Justice at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London for representatives of various legal professions in Great Britain devoted to international family law (in English).September 2017 lecture at KSSiP in Lublin "More effective application of EU family law provisions".May 2019 lecture at the meeting of directors of care and educational institutions and local government units on the subject of "Cooperation of family courts with care and educational institutions"

Central Authority Italy

Giuseppe Vinciguerra, civil judge assigned since may 2017 at the Italian Central Authority - under Hague Conventionon international child abduction, Bruxelles II a Regulation, Hague Conventionon recovery maintenance and Regulation EC 4/2009 - in the Department of Juvenile and Community Justice of the Ministry ofJustice (Magistrato addetto all'Ufficio delle Autorità Centrali insediato presso il Dipartimento per la Giustizia minorile e di Comunità del Ministero della Giustizia).

Gabriella Tomai is born in Taranto on the 8.5.1966.
She took the degree in Law in the University of Bologna in 1990.
In 1992 she became a teacher in Law an economics and in Social Psychology in Italian high school.  She teached also legal subjects in university courses organized by ecclesiastic  body in cooperation with Private and Public Italian University. In 1997 she began her actual job as a Judge.After a period of training in the Tribunal of Taranto, she was sent to Caltanissetta where she currently works. She was a criminal judge since 1997 to 2003. Then she became a civil judge and, in 2004, she became a judge of the juvenile Court in Caltanissetta ,where she placed penal and civil functions.In penal field she took care to the application of children trial and particularly of some different way of definition as such as mediation, probation,ecc.. In civil field she took care of   parental responsibility and adoption.She takes part to several inter institutional bodies that take care of children (bullying observatory, scholastic dispersion, unaccompanied foreign minors and immigrates) . In  the 2013 she has been appointed as a member of Hague Network of Judges about children abduction.Since November 2016 she is Councilor in The Court of Appeal of  Caltanissetta where she dealt with penaltrials. Now she is a civil Judge in the special field of minors and family, and also of immigration. She usually takes part to many trainings about family and children matters also as a rapporteur.She is frequently rapporteur in training for magistrates of Scuola Superiore della Magistratura. She cooperates with specialist journals in family subjects (Minori eGiustizia_ AIMMF; Lex familiae –AMI, AIAF).She takes care of the diffusion of the culture of mediation in familiar field cooperating in research and planning of social services.

Born in Valencia (Spain) on 04/28/1965 and member of the Judiciary since 1993. He has worked as a judge in the Courts of 1st Instance and CriminalInvestigation No. 3 of Tortosa - Tarragona (1994-1999), 1st Instance and CriminalInvestigation No. 7 of Tarragona (1999-2001), 1st Instance No. 44 of Barcelona 2001-2004 and 2011-2014), 1st Instance No. 6 of Zaragoza (2014-2017) and 1st Instance No. 7 of Zaragoza (2017 - today).
He is also a member of the Spanish Judicial Network and in such condition also of the European Civil and Commercial Judicial Network. Between 2004 and 2006 he was Head of the InternationalRelations Service of the General Council for the Judiciary of Spain and between 2006 and 2011 Head of the External Relations Area of ​​the Spanish JudicialSchool.He has participated as leader and expert in Twinning projects in Civil Judicial Cooperation, Civil Procedure Law and Family Law inBulgaria, Romania, Poland, Croatia and Turkey as well as in the field of judicial training in Bulgaria and Morocco.He has participated in numerous seminars (as speaker and director) in the fields of Family Law, Civil Law, Civil Procedure Law,International Civil Judicial Cooperation in Spain, countries of the EuropeanUnion as well as in Turkey and Bolivia organized by the General Council of theJudiciary, European Judicial Training Network or Academy of European Law.In the subjects mentioned above, he has numerous publications both alone and collectively (books and articles).

The Coordinator on Children’s rights used to be called until 2018 the European Parliament Mediator for International Parental Child Abduction. While the role of the Coordinator expanded in 2018 to include the promotion and protection of children’s rights in all EU policies and legislation the Coordinator retains a mandate on cross-border parental child abduction. This mandate includes directly assisting citizens of the Member States experiencing parental child abduction and other cross-border family disputes alongside advocating closer collaboration with the judicial and administrative bodies and the promotion of mediation in cross-border family matters.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis hendrerit sodales magna. Quisque faucibus varius urna sed ullamcorper. Integer sed ultrices lectus, maximus molestie nisi. Nullam malesuada tellus sem, in dignissim libero finibus nec. Vivamus lobortis pellentesque condimentum. Aenean tristique sagittis nisl at volutpat. Proin sed odio turpis. Maecenas at mi in lorem efficitur tristique non eu massa. Ut tincidunt suscipit est, vitae commodo neque sodales ut. In pellentesque dictum sapien eu pellentesque. Donec quam elit, mollis in dignissim quis, molestie quis est. Vivamus mattis ante diam, sed consequat risus blandit eget. Donec vulputate nunc at velit pretium, vitae luctus nibh eleifend. Nunc consectetur molestie erat, bibendum sodales quam finibus a. Donec a orci vel tellus volutpat dictum at in eros. Nam pharetra in quam molestie maximus.

Professor Beaumont moved to the University of Stirling from his personal chair at the University of Aberdeen in August 2019. Paul is one of the editors of the Journal of Private International Law and series editor for Hart Studies in Private International Law. He is one of the authors of the Scottish Universities Law Institute book on Private International Law (3rd edn, 2011). He is the chair of The Hague Conference on Private International Law’s Experts’ Group on Family Agreements. He is a member of the EU’s negotiating team in The Hague Experts’ Group on Jurisdiction in February 2020. He has negotiated the following instruments for the UK and Scottish Governments (Hague Statute 2005, Hague Maintenance Convention and Protocol 2007 and Hague Choice of Court Convention 2005, Brussels I, Ia, Rome I and II, Maintenance and Succession Regulations). In 2019 he was part of the EU delegation that finalised The Hague Judgments Convention. He has published many books and articles on private international law including Cross-Border Litigation in Europe (Hart,2017). He and his partner, Dr Jayne Holliday, are editing the Guide to Global Private International Law (Hart, 2021).