About The Hague Convention
The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was drafted to address some of the issues of jurisdiction and sovereignty inherent in international child abductions. The United States is among more than 80 countries that are parties to the Convention. It provides that when a child who is living in one Hague country is removed from or retained in another Hague country in violation of the left-behind parent’s custodial rights, that child shall be returned to his or her country of habitual residence. Click here for a list of the countries that have agreed to partner with the United States.
Once the child is returned, any custody dispute can then be resolved in the country of habitual residence. The Convention thus mandates only that the child shall be returned to his or her country of habitual residence; it does not determine either jurisdiction or custody.
When an abduction involves countries that are parties to the Convention, it can be invoked to require the return of the child to the country of his or her habitual residence.
However, even among the countries that have signed the Convention, compliance with the treaty is not necessarily either speedy or absolute. Some nations have not passed the necessary legislation, and in those countries, no action will be taken on a Hague application. In other Hague countries, compliance takes place at a slow pace.
At the Law Offices of Lawrence S. Katz, P.A. we have handled numerous child abduction cases involving Hague countries, and in the past two years alone, we have returned 24 children to their countries of habitual residence. While an abduction involving non-Hague nations presents enormous difficulties, we were the first firm to secure the return of children from and to non-Hague nations, including Turkey, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, and Russia.
