Documentary films and short fiction can be very helpful in teaching classes or seminars on international and comparative family law.  Of the films I have shown students, the best for my purposes is Divorce Iranian Style, by Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini (1998).  The film is a nice complement to Mir-Hosseini’s book, Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law (rev. ed. 2001).

Two new books published by Carolina Academic Press have crossed my desk in recent weeks.  Practical Global Family Law: United States, China and Italy by Janet Leach Richards, Chen Wei and Lorella dal Pezzo compares the divorce law of these three countries using a single complex case study.

Advance Access to the December 2009 issue of the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family is now available online.  The issue includes articles on the interrelation of no-fault divorce and premarital contracts (Jens-Uwe Franck); the prohibition of same-sex marriages in Uganda (Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi); the legal battle against domestic violence in India (Tahira Karanjawala and Shivani Chugh); recent developments on same-sex couples and the law in the British Isles (Brian Tob