Building on the insights of social demography, psychology, architecture and housing studies, and law, this SNSF funded interdisciplinary project investigates the effects of four key dimensions on child well-being. The aim of the law subproject is to examine how the best interests of the child are currently considered in Swiss family law in post-separation physical custody arrangements. Every decision related to the child must be taken with a view to the child’s best interests (art. 3 Convention on the Rights of the Child). The consideration of the child’s best interests involves two distinct legal aspects: the procedural dimension of family litigation concerning children (legal rules determining the organization of the courts and the way in which a decision can be obtained) and a material dimension (legal rules for deciding to attribute the child’s custody to one parent rather than the other, in particular the criteria developed by the case law to apprehend the concept of the child’s best interests).

The project aims to complete an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the current state of the Swiss family law procedural rules and material criteria established by the jurisprudence as both aspect, procedural and material, impact custodial arrangements and the child’s best interests. We will analyze the norms and practices related to the best interests of the child regarding in accordance with the traditional legal methodology of statutory interpretation of laws. Second, using a sociology of law approach, we will examine the court records of 50 families who are more than 1 year after the decision of divorce. An independent traditional legal analysis of the court records will be conducted to document the custodial decision process on the basis of the legal criteria developed by the Federal Court in the best interests of the child.