Although, having had the honour of being part of the legal team that was nominated into the final round for the Princess of Asturias Award in the “concord” category in 2019, we were not the recipients of the award.

The Princess of Asturias Foundation convenes the Princess of Asturias Awards, which are presented at a ceremony held each year in Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias. The Foundation’s aims are to contribute to extolling and promoting those scientific, cultural and humanistic values that form part of the universal heritage of humanity and to consolidate the existing links between the Principality of Asturias and the title traditionally held by the heirs to the Crown of Spain.

One of these categories in which the awards are awarded is the “concord’ category. The Spanish word “concord” can roughly be translated to unity or agreement. In the year that we were nominated, the City of Gdansk was the winner of this category. For interest sake they received the award based on “the past and present in Gdansk are sensitive to solidarity, the defence of freedom and human rights, as well as to the preservation of peace”. In previous years, the recipients of the award were, among other entities, the European Union and the city of Berlin, as well as the Yad Vashem Institute and UNICEF.

Our efforts, however, resulted eventually in the legal system in the United Arab Emirates being changed with regards to the custody of minor children of non-citizens of the UAE. The Courts in the UAE now acknowledges the principles of “the child’s best interest” and “joint custody of parents”. The article that we provide was published in an international publication of the Parental Alienation Study Group.