A Teleological and Child-Sensitive Interpretation assessment, which looks broadly to the centre of gravity of a child’s life, the place where the current centre of a child’s life is located. A detailed rendition of this complex area of the law is not called for here; rather, a trifecta of interconnected themes can be distilled, which assist understanding of the notion of a habitual residence from a child’s perspective. First, there has been widespread recognition by the courts that the effective centre of a child’s life may, in certain instances, more usefully be expressed in terms of persons, not territory. Scholars and courts have readily discerned that, in particular, for young children, their primary point of contact is with their family environment and respective caregiver or parent, as they are too young to acclimatise to their broader social environment in country territory.113 The second related point is that courts in various jurisdictions (while by no means consistent) have found in the case of young children (predominantly infants) that their habitual residence inheres to shared parental intentions as to the child’s residence and may follow that of a parent despite that child never having resided on that territory, reflecting the reality that young children primarily integrate into a social and family environment.114 As held by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Mercredi v Chaffe:115 ‘as a general rule, the environment of a young child is essentially a family environment, determined by the reference person(s) with whom the child lives, by whom the child is in fact looked after and taken care of’.116 The third point of guidance from the international family law context relates to the notion of habituality. Given the distinct temporal and developmental differences between adults and children, what is habitual to an adult may not be habitual to a child. In the case of SK v KP,117 the New Zealand High Court observed that, even if the ‘habituality’ in the notion of habitual residence can be shortened for adults who are capable of making independent decisions, this would not be appropriate for children because they simply cannot make such decisions. Children need time to adapt to their surroundings. As young children do not have the same independence or autonomy as adults, their habits and ties to a territory will naturally take longer to establish. Exactly how a child’s family environment, or more precisely, the parent–child relationship, may inform the notion of a habitual residence in the context of refugee status determination is explored in the following Part. B Shared Parent–Child Aspect as Conduit for Transference of Characteristics The CRC, as the lead international convention on the rights of children, depicts the close relationship between parent and child, where children are presented with dual capacities, as both vulnerable persons in need of protection and as rights113 Mercredi v Chaffe (Court of Justice of the European Union, C-497/10PPU, 22 December 114 115 116 117 2010) 8–9 [52]–[54] (‘Mercredi’); Delvoye v Lee, 329 F 3d 330, 332–34 (3rd Cir 2003); Aude Fiorini, ‘Habitual Residence and the Newborn: A French Perspective’ 6(2) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 530. Mercredi (n 113) 9 [53]–[54]. The Court of Justice of the European Union was called to give a preliminary ruling on the question of the appropriate test to interpret the notion of a habitual residence in arts 8 and 10 of the Brussels II Regulation: Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 of 27 November 2003 concerning Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Matrimonial Matters and Matters of Parental Responsibility, Repealing Regulation (EC) No 1347/2000 [2003] OJ L 333/1. Mercredi (n 113) 9 [54]. SK v KP [2005] 3 NZLR 590. 27