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...