"From Patria Potestas to Parental Responsibility: Trajectories of a Concept", in Family Matters. Essays in Honour of John Eekelaar, Intersentia, Cambridge, 2022 pp. 623-636 (original) (raw)

2022, Family Matters. Essays in Honour of John Eekelaar, Edited by Jens M. Scherpe & Stephen Gilmore

Unlike concepts such as patria potestas, parental power or parental rights, the idea of parental responsibility seeks to highlight that children are not a kind of possession to be controlled by their parents, but rather people who must be cared for by them. As such, parental responsibility better describes the expectations of contemporary legal systems regarding parental functions and the central role of the best interests of the child. It is a more pertinent framework to regulate the relationships between parents and their offspring, which is not inconsistent with the recognition of certain parental rights and the value parents´ involvement in the life of children. In the following, I provide a short account of the way in which the idea of parental responsibility, as conceptualised by John Eekelaar, has become central in the legal regulation of the parent-child relationship in Latin America. While most jurisdictions in this Region continue preferring concepts such as patria potestas, parental pow-er or parental authority, both legislation and courts are re-shaping these legal concepts in a way closer to the idea of parental responsibility, as described by Eekelaar

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