Notre Dame Experts Bridge Law and Child Development to Tackle Crisis of Family Separation Amidst Armed Conflict

The separation of families during armed conflicts, a persistent global tragedy, was the subject of a recent cross-disciplinary fireside chat hosted by Notre Dame Law School and the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC), part of the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) at the University of Notre Dame.

The event drew a specialized audience that included international human rights attorneys, students from the LL.M. in International Human Rights Law program and JSD doctoral students specializing in international human rights law, Master of Global Affairs students, members of the Global Human Rights Clinic, undergraduate students, policy practitioners and scholars.

The conversation brought together two distinguished scholars: Professor Neil Boothby, Director of the GC-DWC and an internationally recognized expert and advocate for children affected by war, displacement, and poverty; and Professor Diane Desierto of Notre Dame Law School, Faculty Director for the Human Rights LLM Program and the Global Human Rights Clinic.

Titled, "Legal Frameworks and Practical Challenges: A Conversation on the Enduring Failure to Prevent Family Separations in Armed Conflicts," the event served as a crucial platform to analyze the urgent themes of Professor Boothby's newly published article, "Legal frameworks and practical challenges: a review of the enduring failure to prevent family separations in armed conflicts," in Frontiers in Psychology. The chat was co-hosted by the International Graduate Program - Human Rights LLM Program and the Global Human Rights Clinic.

Professor Boothby provided a deep analysis of the causes and lasting consequences of child-family separations in conflict zones, drawing from decades of field experience and his recent academic work. Professor Desierto offered a critical perspective from global human rights law and accountability, focusing on the limitations of current legal frameworks and the specific vulnerabilities of families in war.

Key Themes of the Discussion

The wide-ranging discussion explored the multifaceted reasons behind the ongoing challenge of family separation:

• Failure of Will, Not Law: Professor Boothby highlighted that the enduring problem is often "not a failure of law, it's a failure of will," noting the strength of international instruments like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Geneva Conventions in protecting family unity.
  
  
• The Problem of Sovereignty: A central point of friction was the principle of state sovereignty, which often shields perpetrators of mass atrocities—including intentional family dissolution—from international intervention and accountability.
  
  
• The Myth of "Resilience" and Continuing Harm: The scholars pushed back against the notion that children are simply "resilient" to the effects of war. They emphasized the concept of "continuing harm," noting that chronic toxic stress during formative early years causes physiological and psychological damage that lasts a lifetime. Healing, they argued, is a collective, relational act, which mandates sustained support for the entire community, not just the separated child.
  
  
• Unintended Harm of Humanitarian Aid: The discussion touched on the unintended consequences of humanitarian responses, such as the rise of orphanages in conflict zones. Professor Boothby underscored that in many cases, children placed in institutions have living family members, and that community-based support—rather than institutionalization—is the most effective and protective measure.
  
  
• The Time-Bound Nature of Protection: Professor Desierto stressed the limitations of legal definitions, noting that special protections for children and families are often time-bound (e.g., aging out of child status) and contingent on narrow legal definitions of what constitutes a "family," excluding crucial extended kinship networks.

Pathways to Action and Reform

The conversation concluded by moving from problem acknowledgment to practical recommendations, highlighting specific policy reforms detailed in Professor Boothby's article:

• Strengthen Accountability Against State Sovereignty: International bodies, including the UN Security Council, must develop mechanisms to impose sanctions or diplomatic consequences on states that invoke sovereignty to deliberately obstruct obligations regarding family protection, forced transfers, or family reunification.
  
  
• Mandate Family-Based Care in All Emergency Protocols: International donors and humanitarian agencies must make it a condition of funding that responses prioritize and financially support family-based care models (kinship care, spontaneous fostering, community-based care) over institutional models, except as an absolute last resort.
  
  
• Integrate Prevention into Humanitarian Programming: All major aid programs must adopt a holistic, family-centric approach that addresses the needs of the entire family or caregiving unit, not just the separated child. This includes providing aid, counseling, and reintegration support to parents and community members to buffer against stigma and prevent secondary separation.
  
  
• Digitize and Secure Identity Documentation: The international community should invest in technologies and standardized, secure, and easily verifiable digital civil registration systems (such as blockchain-based identity solutions) that are resilient to mass displacement and destruction.

This cross-disciplinary dialogue served as an essential call to action for legal scholars, human rights practitioners, humanitarian workers, and policy advocates to bridge the gap between principle and practice in protecting the most vulnerable in armed conflict.

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About the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC)

The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC) at the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame collaborates with researchers and practitioners to ensure the well-being—physical, emotional, social, and cognitive—of children and adolescents in low-resource and conflict-affected settings. Established to serve as a coherent platform for the Institute for Educational Initiative’s growing portfolio of global child development and learning programs, the GC-DWC creates environments that foster resilience and encourage children and adolescents to thrive. Using an innovative Whole Child Development (WCD) approach tailored to context-specific needs, the GC-DWC translates research into timely and thoughtful action, adapts research tools to improve the development of learning programs and policies, and activates systems (families, schools, communities) to lift children and adolescents out of adversity.

Learn more about the GC-DWC’s work to transform child development globally: iei.nd.edu/gc-dwc

About The Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (NDLS GHRC)

The Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (NDLS GHRC) is the experiential learning unit of the Human Rights Program, open to all ND Law students (JD, LLM, and JSD). Drawing from the Program’s half-century track record and established pedagogy in Natural Law, Jurisprudence, and International Human Rights Law, the GHRC centers on three core functions: representation, education, and advocacy. This structure provides students with real-world lawyering experience representing individuals and organizations globally, specialized human rights training, and opportunities to advocate for human rights-driven legal reform.

Learn more about the NDLS GHRC: https://ndlsglobalhumanrights.nd.edu