Webinar Speakers:

Martina Erb-Klünemann
European Judicial Network (EJN) Judge & International Hague Network Judge (IHNJ). Family Judge, Hamm Districk Court, Germany

Dr Joanna Guttzeit
European Judicial Network (EJN) Judge & International Hague Network Judges (IHNJ). Family Judge, Family Court Berlin, Germany

Martina Erb-Klünemann is a German family court judge. She worked as a judge in civil law and criminal law cases at various courts before her appointment as a family judge in 1996. In this capacity she is responsible for international family conflicts pending at Hamm District Court as the centralized court for the District of Hamm Court of Appeals. Because of her wide experience in cross-border family conflicts and her particular interest in international family law and the European peculiarities she is often asked to share her knowledge in Germany and abroad. She was a member of the working group on drafting the Hague Guide to Good Practice on art. 13 (1) (b) of the 1980 Hague Convention as well as of the European Judicial Network Working Group on Family Mediation in International Child Abduction Cases and chairperson of the German Working Group on Implementing the Mediation Process in 1980 Hague Convention Proceedings.

Martina Erb-Klünemann has led the annual German Judges’ Seminars on the Hague Convention on Child Abduction since 2008. She publishes on different aspects of international family law including commentaries on the 1980 Hague Convention and the Brussels IIb-Regulation and on implementing mediation into these proceedings. She is the co-author of a text book on international family law which she wrote together with the lawyer Niethammer-Jürgens. She runs worldwide courses in cross-border family law and training courses on the integration of mediation in addressing cross-border family conflicts. She consults States in improving their national law in order to deal in a more effective way with return proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention. Her main focus is on strengthening the rights of children and supporting families in finding an amicable solution. 

Dr Joanna Guttzeit a judge, graduated with great honors from the Faculty of Law of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, and from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. She received her PhD in Law from Heidelberg University (Karl-Ruprecht-Universität Heidelberg) in Germany within the joint European Postgraduate School of the Universities of Heidelberg, Germany and Kraków, Poland. 

At the beginning of her career, Dr Guttzeit worked as a lawyer (solicitor) in international law firms (Magic Circle) in the field of European and international competition law, particularly in Cologne (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), and London (UK). In 2009, she transitioned to the judiciary.

After serving as a judge in Cologne for several years, she was seconded to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France) from 2015 to 2017.

Until February 2025, Dr Guttzeit served at the Pankow Family Court in Berlin (Germany), where she handled proceedings involving international matters (child abduction, maintenance, etc.). Since March 2025, she has been seconded to Berlin’s Liaison Office in Brussels, Belgium, where she is in charge of the justice, digital agenda, consumer protection, and other law-related policy areas. She also continues since 2018  to act worldwide as a Network Judge within the International Hague Network of Judges and the European Judicial Network in civil matters.

Fluent in German, Polish, English and Russian, she is a frequent speaker at international conferences on EU and HCCH family law, judicial cooperation and fundamental rights. She also writes regularly for legal commentaries and publishes articles and case notes in German, Polish and international law journals.

Nadia Rusinova
Lawyer, Lecturer, Consultat in EU & International Family Law, Bulgaria

Dr. Miloš Haťapka

Former Director of Private International Law at the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic

Nadia Rusinova is a qualified attorney, specializing in EU family law, private international law, and cross-border child abduction. She is a lead lecturer in EU family law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, where she teaches international and European family law, private international law, and children’s rights. As a practicing lawyer and judicial trainer, Nadia works extensively on cross-border parental responsibility, international child abduction cases, and the recognition and enforcement of family law decisions. She has served as a lead researcher for the Council of Europe in family justice projects and represented Bulgaria in the European Commission’s expert group on the recognition of parenthood.

She is the author of the Practical Handbook on EU Family Law – Part 1: Key Concepts, Legal Terminology, and CJEU Case Law in Cross-Border Judicial Cooperation, a freely available practitioner-focused resource on terminology and CJEU case law.

JUDr. Miloš Haťapka is a graduate of the Faculty of Law of the Comenius University in Bratislava. He has devoted his entire professional activity to the Private International Law, especially its practice in the field of International Family Law. From 1989 until his retirement in 2023, he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic, from 2004 in the position of the Director of the Department of Private International Law.

In the years 1993 to 2014, he regularly represented Slovakia, as Head of Delegation, at the Diplomatic Conferences and Special Commissions of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Between 1998-2001 he chaired the Committee of Experts on Family Law of the Council of Europe and between 1999-2001 he also chaired the European Committee for Legal Cooperation of the Council of Europe. Between 2004-2008, he was seconded as a Slovak national expert to the European Commission and during that time he took part in the negotiations of several regulations in the field of Private International Law and in the negotiation of several Hague Conventions. He was the designated Slovak expert for the negotiations on the revised Brussels I Regulation, Maintenance Regulation, and the Brussels IIb Regulation. From 2014 to 2023 he was posted at the Permanent Representation of the Slovak Republic to the European Union in Brussels as the Civil Law Counsellor. During the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2016 he chaired the Council Working Group responsible for the preparation of the future Brussels IIb Regulation.

He is a co-author of a Slovak textbook on Private International Law. He has published many articles on specific aspects of Private International Law in domestic and foreign professional journals.

He is a guest lecturer of Private International Law at the Comenius University in Bratislava and regularly participates at events aimed at training of judges and other legal professions at home and abroad.