The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child sets out that every child has a right to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental , spiritual, moral and social development, and that the parent(s) or others responsible for the child have the primary responsibility to secure, within their abilities and financial capacities, the conditions of living necessary for the child’s development. The Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (“IRCSFFM”) replaced the former United Nations Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance (“UNCRAM”) and other Maintenance Conventions and sets out the intention of the signatory States to provide a more uniform process for the assessment, registration and international collection of Child Support/Maintenance (“CSM”) on an international scale. This paper follows on from the author’s paper presented at WCFLCR in Dublin in 2017, to further explore the issues associated with changes to any assessment or order, and enforcement of CSM between jurisdictions.
The difficulties associated with applications for changes to any assessment/order, and enforcement of international CSM are manifold, and include:
• How does each contracting State change or alter the costs of a child, or the incomes of the parents, from an administrative or initial Order?
• What processes are in place in each contracting State for the enforcement of international CSM?
• What are the impediments to efficient changes to administrative assessment/Court orders, and enforcement of CSM?
This article will explore the differences between Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada in the applications for changes to any assessment/order, and enforcement of international CSM between those four jurisdictions, including the administrative and judicial interventions and determinations of international CSM. Suggestions and recommendations for legislative and administrative change may also follow.

The article juxtaposes children's rights and child welfare theories with welfare law legislation and jurisprudence, with a focus on housing, income supplementation, and debt. Despite the profound impact of socioeconomic condition on children, existing legal frameworks often fail to adequately integrate principles of children's rights and child welfare, resulting in policies that inadequately address the unique needs of children living in poverty.

Through a critical analysis of current welfare laws and judicial decisions, the article traces situations and issues where child-centered perspectives are most crucial but lacking. For instance, housing regulations frequently overlook the detrimental effects of unstable living conditions on child development; income supplementation programs often fail to consider the increasing impact of poverty on children's long-term well-being; and legal responses to debt-related issues commonly neglect the collateral consequences for children, who may experience heightened stress and instability as a result.

Following the legal analysis of the texts collected for the study, we propose a reform agenda that incorporates children's rights and child welfare theory into the legislative and judicial processes governing poverty and welfare. This includes recommending a holistic approach to policy-making that prioritizes the developmental needs of children and ensures that their voices are represented in legal decisions regarding welfare issues. By aligning welfare law frameworks with children rights welfare principles, we aim to inspire positive change and advocate for a more equitable and supportive system for children affected by poverty.

The world over, adults are increasingly re-partnering after the break-up of a previous relationship. Often, there are children from both relationships, and sometimes there are children from the same parent in more than two households. Consequently, family law practitioners and scholars are trying to grapple with how to best ensure the rights and interests of the children, as well as fairness towards parents (and their new partners), in such situations. This paper focuses on child support where the payor (or “payer”) parent has children in multiple households, including where the payor has re-partnered and is residing with the children of the “new” household, as well as where the payor has children in multiple households but is not residing with any of them. I look at three jurisdictions – Canada, Australia and Japan – and compare their distinct approaches to child support in cases of “multiple families”. This work focuses both on the “how” and the “why”, and attempts to answer the following questions: (1) Are obligations towards children in “other” households (children from previous or subsequent relationships) taken into consideration when calculating child support, and what is the reasoning behind doing so/not doing so? (2) If obligations to “other” children are taken into account, (a) is there a threshold for doing so; and (b) how is child support (re-)calculated in such cases? (3) Where the payor parent has re-partnered, is the new partner’s income (or lack thereof) relevant to the calculation of child support, and why/why not? I draw and expand on earlier comparative work by, among others, Meyer, Skinner & Davidson (2011). Complex Families and Equality in Child Support Obligations. Children and Youth Services Review 33; Claessens & Mortelmans (2018). Challenges for Child Support Schemes: Accounting for Shared Care and Complex Families, Journal of European Social Policy 28(3).