engleski

Identity of a child in cross-border legal transit (naming law at focus)

A child as an individual is identified in a society, among other, with its name. Naming law was traditionally perceived as a reflection of sovereign powers of the state over its nationals. Contemporary cross-border migrations challenge this static perception of personal status matters. Moreover, they shift the emphasis to another legal disciplines besides personal status of civil and administrative law: human rights law and private international law. This paper explores the motives and the ratio of child naming law and policy in global, regional and national context. It questions if national systems are adapting to contemporary mobile society, particularly due to limitations of sovereign powers of the states in child naming policy imposed by international community. Mosaic of international and European obligations undertaken by the state preserve the right of a child to a personal name, right to its family, right to an identity, right to move and reside freely in the EU. These rights have to be placed to a fair balance with the powers of the states to use the name as an identification tool, a tool to preserve national naming tradition and language. ECtHR and CJEU set guidelines to safeguard and achieve balance among these diverging rights and interests. Analyses of relevant judgements serves to reveal whether the rights of the child in the naming law are perceived in the context of preservation of identity of a child as well.

child ; identity ; name ; nationality

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