Sarah Den Haese
Bio
In 2012, Sarah Den Haese obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Social Work at the Artevelde Hogeschool in Ghent. Afterwards, she commenced her studies in law at the University of Ghent from which she graduated in 2016 with great distinction. In the framework of the Erasmus exchange program, she spent one semester at the University of Helsinki. In her final thesis, she examined the role and position of children who are the victim of parental abduction.
Sarah’s research interests concern private international law, (international) family law, human rights and migration law. In August 2016, she started working for the Institute of Private International Law at the University of Ghent were she is working on a PhD concerning the portability of cross-border civil statuses. Departing from the right to respect for private and family life, her research will examine whether and to what extent the human rights approach is able to reduce the negative effects of limping legal relations
Research Project
I cross the border and carry with me…
Cross-border civil status: a private international law issue from a human rights perspective.
The increasing mobility of people leads to the worldwide circulation of documents that record the civil status of people (e.g. birth, marriage, death). The recognition of these documents traditionally belongs to the field of private international law which aspires cross-border harmony and continuity in the life of people. A noble objective, yet hard to put in practice. As a result, some people carry a different civil status (e.g. unmarried) in their host country in comparison with the status in their country of origin (e.g. married). Such discrepancies – also called limping legal relations – generate legal uncertainty and unpredictability. This research aims to study a new approach to cross-border civil status. Departing from the right to respect for private and family life, the research will examine whether and to what extent the human rights approach is able to reduce the negative effects of limping legal relations (increasing the cross-border portability of a certain civil status).