5 Recent Trends of Family Law

1. From sacrament to contract: marriage as a registered, consensual civil status; divorce from fault-only to fault-plus-consent-plus-breakdown elements; 2. Gender-neutrality: the Code 2074's language and design (both spouses' equal property and family-affairs rights; equal parental standing); 3. The child's-rights revolution: best-interest codified (Children's Act 2075); child-friendly justice (Article 39(8)); child marriage's criminalization strengthened (Criminal Code 2074 — Criminal Law-II, this semester); 4. The recognition frontier — sexual minorities: the Supreme Court's line from Sunil Babu Pant v. Government of Nepal (NKP 2065, Vol. 4, D.No. 7958) — the Court's recognition directive for sexual minorities and the study order on same-sex marriage — to Sudhansu Koirala v. Snidha Mainali (NKP 2077, D.No. 10482) — the same-sex marriage-registration ruling: Nepal as the world's unexpected pioneer of marriage-recognition by court order (Unit 2's detail); 5. Reproductive technology: IVF and surrogacy — the Supreme Court's surrogacy ruling in Puspa Raj v. Government of Nepal (NKP 2074, Vol. 4, D.No. 9757): surrogacy only by parliamentary law, not Cabinet decision; the statute still awaited (Unit 4); 6. Decentralization of family justice: the local-level judicial committees (the Constitution's Article 217) — family disputes' first forum at the ward and village/municipal level (Unit 7); 7. The migration dimension: foreign employment and transnational families — foreign divorce recognition (Article 706 of the Civil Code), international child abduction's unresolved gap,…