Family Law

Richard's practice is concentrated on cases involving children both in the public law field and in private law proceedings.

His private law work includes disputes relating to contact and residence as well as leave to remove applications. Richard’s practice has developed a particular focus on International Child Abduction, representing both Applicants and Defendants in cases relating to both Hague and non Hague Convention countries. He frequently writes articles and gives papers on recent developments in Child Abduction.

Whilst at Amnesty Richard worked for the Refugee Team with responsibility for the preparation of individual cases of refugees/asylum seekers for presentation to the Refugee Board. He researched strategic topics for future Executive Committee meetings of UNHCR such as "Internally Displaced Peoples" and "Warehousing of Refugees" and made presentations on behalf of Amnesty to student rallies and to other NGO's. At UNICEF Richard provided background research for the fourth report on the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC Report) in Australia both in terms of its successes and identifying areas of weakness. He was also responsible for the preparation of data for the Shadow Report consultation on ICESCR (International Convenant on Economical, Social and Cultural Rights) as UNICEF embarked on a project to document the state of human rights in Australia.
Prior to leaving in August 2007 much of his work was directed to the preparation of briefing documents and he assisted in coordinating the UNICEF junior round table on Asia Pacific Forum (J-RAP). The forum provided a platform for Australian youth to call on APEC leaders to address their concerns about climate change, trade and development.

Rachael Blakey is a PhD candidate at Cardiff University Law School, researching the concepts of mediator neutrality and party power in modern family mediation practice.