Abstract This research relates to the collection, processing, and analysis of incoming child abduction proceedings of the four biggest municipal courts (of Zagreb, Osijek, Split, and Rijeka) in Croatia. The research focused on proceedings initiated between 1 July 2013 and 1 July 2017. The collected decisions (all unpublished) were critically evaluated with the help of a number of variables. The results are comparable to other national and international studies. The most interesting studies relate to the duration of certain procedures, voluntary return of the child and achievement of an amicable agreement, the hearing of children, the different causes of abduction, the decisions in return proceedings, and the relevance of the social welfare report to a return decision. This research allows us to evaluate the Croatian practices against the requirements of European and international legal frameworks. The results have already led to law reform in Croatia.

This chapter points out the ways in which the legal standard of the best interests of the child affected the system of cross-border judicial protection of a child. Nowadays best interest of the child operates as a declaratory overriding principle, but boils down to the level of choice-of-law rules, the level of criteria of international jurisdiction, and as a basic interpretive principle in cross-border child-related matters. It is noticeable that this principle is not of equal importance in all child-related matters. Thus some sectors, such as child abduction, have been particularly elaborated in the chapter. The chapter discusses the Hague Conference on Private International Law convention system as well as relevant eu regulations. It is argued that the best interests of the child principle was significantly advanced by the introduction of a new methodology of adjudication in cross-border child-related issues, which entails more flexibility and requires sensitivity to the needs and interests of children in each case. Implementing the best-interests principle allows a more holistic approach to decisions relating to children in cross-border protection and involves the proactive power of interpretation of the adjudicatory authority.

Brussels II bis Regulation, op. cit. note 8, Article 60(1)(e). 14 Convention on Measures for the Protection of Children, op. cit. note 7), Article 52(1).

Matters of jurisdiction seem to be among aspects of judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters in which so far most regulatory activity of the European union (hereinafter: EU) has been undertaken. Upon close examination of the rules on jurisdiction of courts in civil and commercial matters in the existing legal framework at EU level, it becomes obvious that they contain the same principle of territoriality. At the same time, in the course of modernization both at the national and EU level it seems that the principle of functionality is becoming more dominant. A question whether it is justified to depart from rules on jurisdiction based on the principle of territoriality and confer jurisdiction on a court other than that of the defendant's domicile based on the principle of functionality in a cross-border case has arisen recently in joined cases C-400/13 and C-408/13. Within the context of a rather ambiguous view the CJEU took in its decision in the aforementioned cases, the paper examines if enhancing functionality through concentration of jurisdiction will eventually become an advantage or obstacle to access to justice. The analysis includes presentation and comparison of provisions on jurisdiction in cross-border cases based on the principle of territoriality and functionality respectively in several EU legal instruments regulating private international law and civil procedure matters. The paper attempts to draw attention to models of achieving procedural efficiency in different fields of EU's activity, such as enhancing consumer protection or introducing cross-border collective redress.

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