MK Family Law

The Hague Conference on Private International Law organized a meeting of an Experts Group to discuss the feasibility of a future instrument on the issues of parentage and surrogacy.  This group met from February 15-17, 2021 online.  You can view its report here .  The group concluded it is ready to prepare a final report to the Council on a possible future legal instrument that will outline private international law rules on parentage due to surrogacy.  But, the group concluded that it was difficult to have meaningful discussions virtually, so it will wait until 2022 so that members can travel to meet in-person to prepare a final report.  Therefore, the current goal is to prepare a final report to submit to the Council for its 2023 meeting (usually held in March each year).  

The governing body of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, its Council on General Affairs and Policy , met from March 1-5, 2021 online.  This body dictates the work of the Hague Conference.  There were a few family law items on the agenda, and the Conclusions and Decisions reached by the CGAP can be found here .   Some family law highlights include: 1. The Permanent Bureau will finalize the draft Practical Guide on cross-border recognition and enforcement of agreements reached in the course of family matters involving children, to be circulated to the organization's members for comment, and then submitted to the CGAP for its approval in one year (2022).  You can learn more about this project here .   2. The CGAP approved preparations for the Special Commission (SC) meeting on the Hague Abduction and Hague Child Protection Conventions, to be held the second half of calendar year 2023.   Up for discussion at this SC meeting will b...

The Hague Conference's (HCCH) Council on General Affairs and Policy (the organization's governing body) holds an annual meeting, typically in March, to set forth an agenda for the organization's work over the coming year.  The meeting is attended by representatives of Member States.  Prior to each year's Council meeting, the Permanent Bureau (PB) staff prepare a variety of useful documents related to the organization's work .  There are a variety of family law topics on the Council agenda for the March 2021 (tentative) meeting.  Included among those topics is planning for the organization's next Special Commission meeting on the 1980 Child Abduction and 1996 Child Protection Conventions.  Special Commission meetings are scheduled once every (approximately) five years and serve as a meeting for Members and relevant international organizations to discuss the practical operation of a specific treaty.  The 1980 and 1996 Conventions are routinely packaged togeth...

The Hague Conference on Private International Law hosted a successful conference in December 2019 that focused on employing information technology in international service of process cases.  The conference was the motivation for a new publication, now available on the Hague Conference's website .  The publication includes articles from Ted Folkman about using email as a secure means of transmitting service, Katerina Ossenova  about using electronic platforms between Central Authorities, Brody Warren  about the relevance of service by postal channels in today's tech era, and Dr.  Gerardine Escolar  about future-proofing the Hague Service Convention, among many others.  Extra congratulations to Dr. Escolar, who not only headlines extremely important portfolios in the field of international family law for the HCCH, but whose dedication lead to this successful conference.  The next iteration will be held virtually on December 2nd . 

Today marks an auspicious day in history.  It is the 40th anniversary of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.  This highly successful treaty serves to promptly return children to their habitual residence after they are wrongfully removed or retained in another treaty partner country.   You can find the Hague Conference's resource page for all things Child Abduction by clicking here .  For practitioners, pay special attention to a few resources on this website, including the Country Profiles  (cheat sheets on the resources available in a country for the Child Abduction Convention), the Status Table (to see what countries have ratified, acceded, and what countries accepted accessions), and a link to INCADAT (the caselaw database on child abduction cases).  Be sure to explore the Guides to Good Practice, the Explanatory Report, and all the documents reviewed and discussed as part of the Special Commission meetings (held about every 5 years to discu...

On July 1, 2020, the United States accepted Pakistan's accession to the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.  The treaty will enter into force between the U.S. and Pakistan on October 1, 2020. As a quick note, Pakistan did not appear among the list of countries that are not compliant with returning abducted children in the  most recent compliance reports under ICAPRA, issued by the U.S. Department of State each spring. This may or may not have played a role in the U.S. government's decision to accept Pakistan's accession.  Pakistan became a party to the 1980 Convention in 2017 , but the U.S. delayed in accepting its accession.  Pakistan has not completed its Country Profile , which is requested of each country who becomes a treaty party to the Convention.  Country Profiles are helpful documents maintained by the Hague Conference on Private International Law that gives basic details on the treaty's operation in that country.  

The Hague Conference on Private International Law published a toolkit that explores the application of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention in the wake of COVID-19.   You can find the toolkit by going here .  The toolkit pinpoints resources and publications provided by the HCCH that support a global response to the current pandemic.   The document highlights: - focusing on each case individually (on a "case-by-case" basis) - ensuring suitable contact between parents and children - promoting mediation and other mechanisms to resolve these cases, including remote mediation - sharing information and collaborating among judges and the Central Authorities - putting in place practical door-to-door arrangements to ensure a child is returned safely The document then provides hyperlinks to the relevant documents on the HCCH's website that provides additional guidance.

The Hague Conference published a document that pinpoints its resources for those working on private international law issues during the covid-19 pandemic.  The toolkit can be found at this link .  When reviewing the document, you can click on links that will divert you to places on the HCCH's website to help you easily find resources, like the Guide to Good Practice on Article 13(b) of the 1980 Convention, the Guide to Good Practice on Mediation, and the HCCH's e-Apostille program. For those who are not familiar navigating the HCCH's website, this toolkit will more easily help you find the most pertinent parts that might be implicated by the global pandemic.

On April 16, 2020, the Hague Conference on Private International Law published its newest Guide to Good Practice under the Evidence Convention .  This publication looks at the development of video-links in taking evidence overseas using the Evidence Convention.  It outlines good practices and has references to material from Contracting Parties. The Evidence Convention provides a mechanism to obtain evidence overseas between treaty partners in contemplation of judicial proceedings.  You can find more information on the Evidence Convention on the HCCH's website by clicking here .

The Hague Conference on Private International Law published its much anticipated Guide to Good Practice on Article 13(b) of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.  This guide provides guidance to attorneys, judges, and governments on the application of the grave risk of harm exception to returning a child under the treaty. The work of the Experts Group that produced the Guide was approved during the Sixth Special Commission meeting of the Hague Conference in 2011/2012.  The Experts Group convened for its first meeting in June 2013. The Guide can be found here .

On February 25, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which concluded that Italy was the habitual residence of an infant that was brought from Italy to Ohio by her mother in 2015, shortly after the child was born. This opinion resolved a circuit split over the definition of habitual residence. The 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention is the private international law instrument that seeks to secure the prompt return of a child removed from or retained out of its habitual residence. It is not a child custody or jurisdictional determination, and not a means of enforcing existing custody orders. Instead it is designed to restore some type of status quo so that the child’s parents can pursue a custody order from the court in the appropriate jurisdiction. It discourages forum shopping and gives the child some consistency during the parents’ custody litigation. The threshold question that a court must resolve in determining w...