Keynote Speakers

Frederik Swennen is Full Professor of Family Law at the University of Antwerp, Belgium and of counsel at Deloitte Legal Lawyers. Before joining the law faculty, he clerked for prosecutor-general du Jardin at the Belgian Supreme Court. He is an elected member of various academies. He researches and teaches family law, non-human entities and adult capacity. His research is social-theoretically informed and empirically grounded through qualitative methods.

Lady Hale retired as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in January 2020, after a varied career, as an academic lawyer at the University of Manchester (also qualifying and practising for a while as a barrister), then as the first woman member of the Law Commission leading the team promoting the reform of Family Law, and finally as a Judge, initially in the Family Division of the High Court. Family Law has always been her main interest. In retirement she has spent her time in good works, speaking and writing – Spider Woman, A Life (2021), With the Law on Our Side (2025), and Do We Have the Right to Die? (2026).

Professor Doctor İpek Sağlam is a faculty member at the Marmara University Faculty of Law, Department of Civil Law. Her professional focus lies predominantly in the sub-disciplines of civil law—specifically family law, the law of persons, the law of obligations (both general and special provisions), property law, and inheritance law. Alongside her scholarly research, she has contributed to the field with her English-language monograph, “Turkish Family Law”. In addition to her academic pursuits, she serves as a chief arbitrator at the Istanbul Arbitration Center.

Full Professor of Commercial Law at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. She is the President of the European Law Institute (ELI). She is the Director of the Research Chair on AI Foundations and Frontiers. She was Sir Roy Goode Scholar at Unidroit in 2021–22 and she has been elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She is a Delegate of the Kingdom of Spain at United Nations (for UNCITRAL) in Working Group VI on secured transactions, WG IV on e-commerce (AI Contracting), and WG I on Warehouse Receipts, and an Expert for UNCITRAL and Unidroit on digital economy projects – including the MLWR.

She is also member of the European Commission Expert Group on Liability and New Technologies, the EU Expert Group for the Observatory on Online Platform Economy, and the EU Expert Group on B2B Data Sharing and Cloud Computing. She is an arbitrator at the Spanish/Madrid Court of Arbitration and Vice President of the WG on Digital Economy of the CIAM-CIAR (Center of International and Latin American Arbitration of Madrid).

She is member of the European Law Institute (ELI) Executive Committee and Council and author of the ELI Guiding Principles on ADM. She was awarded a European Central Bank scholarship under the ECB Legal Program on Fintech Regulatory Challenges. Her past academic appointments include, inter alia, the James J Coleman Sr Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Tulane Law School, Academic Visitor at the University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Associate Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, Marie Curie Fellow at Centre of European Law and Politics (Germany), and Chair of Excellence at Oxford University.

Philippe Lortie joined the Permanent Bureau of the HCCH in September 2001 as First Secretary. He is co-responsible for the International Family & Child Protection Law Team which includes the 1980 Child Abduction, 1996 Child Protection, 2000 Protection of Adults and 2007 Child Support Conventions and the 2007 Protocol on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations. He is also responsible for the International Hague Network of Judges (IHNJ), the Judges’ Newsletter and e-Justice tools supporting HCCH Conventions such as e-Country Profiles, INCADAT and iSupport.

Before joining the HCCH, from 1991 to 2001 Philippe Lortie was Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice of Canada. In that capacity, he acted as Head of Canadian delegations to the HCCH, Unidroit and UNCITRAL including the HCCH Special Commission of a Diplomatic character on the 2000 Protection of Adults Convention. During that period, Philippe Lortie was Project Co-ordinator and Rapporteur for several Uniform Model laws in the field of commercial law and disputes resolution developed under the auspices of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada. Philippe Lortie is a member of the Québec Bar since 1991 and holds degrees in Civil Law (LL.L.) and Common Law (LL.B.). He also holds an LL.M. in international law for which he has received several awards.

Justice Amy C. Lazaro-Javier became the 182nd Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the Philippines upon her appointment on March 7, 2019. She is
one of the only two sitting female magistrates of the Supreme Court of the
Philippines. She currently serves as Co-Chairperson of the Committee on Family
Courts and Juvenile Concerns (CFCJC); Co-Chairperson of the Council of ASEAN
Chief Justices (CACJ) Working Group on Cross-Border Disputes Involving
Children (WG-CBDIC); and President of the Philippine Women Judges
Association. She likewise chairs the Sub-Committee on the Revision of the Code
of Professional Responsibility and serves as Vice-Chairperson of the Committee
on Environment and Sustainability. She is a former Vice-President of the
International Association of Women Judges. She previously chaired the
Committee on Gender Responsiveness in the Judiciary (2021–2022) and was the
Chairperson of the 2025 Philippine Bar Examinations.
As the Co-Chairperson of the CFCJC, she led efforts to increase the effectiveness
and efficiency of family courts, developed rules and implementation frameworks,
such as The Rule on International Child Abduction Cases and the Rule on Family
Mediation, and organized two National Family Courts Summits, which led to the
adoption by the Supreme Court of reforms to standardize family court processes.
Under her leadership as Co-Chairperson of the CACJ WG-CBDIC, the Working
Group organized two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Family
Judges Fora, established a resource page for mediation and a resource page for
legal procedure on the ASEAN Judiciaries Portal, established a procedure for
administrative verification of court orders, agreed to appoint Points of Liaison to
help in the administration of cross-border cases, and adopted the Common
Procedure to help in administration of cross-border mediation in cross-border
disputes involving children.
Her career in public service has spanned decades. Before joining the Supreme
Court, she served as Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals from September
13, 2007 to March 6, 2019. Prior to her tenure at the Court of Appeals, she
practiced law from 1983 to September 12, 2007 at the Office of the Solicitor
General, starting as a Trial Attorney before being promoted to Solicitor, and
eventually, to Assistant Solicitor General, a position she held for fourteen years.
Justice Lazaro-Javier graduated Class Valedictorian and Magna Cum Laude from
the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law. She earned her Bachelor of
Science in Education degree (Magna Cum Laude) from the Philippine Normal
College and subsequently taught in several Manila public high schools.