Pluralità di fonti per la tutela di un minore straniero presente in Italia e necessità di un loro coordinamento

This article analyses a decree issued by the Court of Appeal of Bari rejecting the complaint of an Albanian citizen against a previous decree of the Family Tribunal of Bari. The Tribunal had ordered the forfeiture of the woman from parental responsibility towards her young child (an Alba-nian citizen, as well) and other measures for the protection of the child. The cross-border features of the case have provided the opportunity for highlighting the different regulatory sources likely to be applied in the field of protection of foreign children such as Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003, the 1996 Hague Convention on the protection of children and the Italian rules on jurisdiction and applicable law, and to verify whether the relevant rules relating to both jurisdiction and applicable law have been correctly applied. In this regard, the decree of the Court of Appeal is substantially compliant with the best interests of the child, but raises some perplexities for the failure to ascertain the habitual residence of the child and consequently for having applied the internal rule on tacit acceptance of jurisdiction rather than Article 8 of Regulation No 2201/2003. Another unclear aspect of the Court’sruling is that it did not specify on the basis of which conflict-of-law rule Italian law was applied.