SOCIAL PROTECTION OF THE FAMILY IN INTERNATIONAL AND EU LAW

People and families have been stricken by poverty from the dawn of time. As a result of the tragic events of World Wars I and II, the 20th century became the arena for the development of humanitarian law fundamentals. The most important international organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, and the Council of Europe, started operating in the post-war period. The first declarations and conventions referred to the issue of social protection on the ideological and axiological level and emphasized only a need to provide poor families and their members with social security. Over time, the normative dimension became specialized, both concerning the content and details of the proclaimed regulations. The article, which discusses the issue of social protection of the family from the perspective of basic international and EU laws, has a character of a review. The analysis of the selected legal acts is centered both on the territorial aspect, focusing on the universal, regional (European) and EU trends, and the temporal one – presenting the evolution of social protection programs over almost one hundred years. The study deals also with a question about the normative cohesion of the universal, regional (European) and EU systems, as well as their interrelations, that is to say: competition or mutual reception. The conclusions from the research give a positive answer and emphasize the development and specialization of social institutions, both on the universal and regional levels. Furthermore, the conclusions indicate that, during evolution, social proposals have moved from the ideological level towards detailed pragmatism, harmonizing the three legal protection systems. The dogmatic-legal method and theoretical-legal method have been applied to verify the problems and hypotheses formulated, owing to which it has been possible to carry out normative analyses and corroborate them with the doctrine of human rights and social law.