International child abduction touches families across the entire economic spectrum.  With the advent of low-cost international travel and modern communications, the possibility of meeting and marrying a person from a different country or culture no longer remains remote.  Indeed, cross-cultural or international marriages now take place that probably would not have occurred just a generation ago.  However, many of these marriages will end in divorce.  And, if one of the parties chooses to return to his or her native country, the likelihood of a child abduction or international child custody litigation increases.

The Hague Convention¹ governs international child abduction.  The Convention arose in response to the global problem of international child abduction. The parties to the Convention adopted it to

protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the [nation-state] of their habitual residence, as well as to secure protection for the rights of access.

However, the Convention only reaches abductions that occur when a parent unlawfully removes a child from one signatory country to another signatory country.  The United States ratified the Convention in 1988 and passed the International Child Abduction Remedies Act, which establishes the procedural and jurisdictional rules in proceedings involving the return of children taken from another signatory country and brought to the United States.

To invoke the protection of the Hague Convention, the child at issue must be "habitually resident" in a signatory country and have been removed to another signatory country.  The petitioner must then demonstrate that the other parent wrongfully removed or retained the child; however, the Convention does permit limited defenses to the abduction. The courts have experienced difficultly settling on a definition for "habitual residence."  Even though most of the circuit courts have considered the issue, they have not reached a consensus on the definition.

Mr. Katz is a mentor with the International Child Abduction Attorney Network and has received awards from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). He represents both the left-behind parent and those who are alleged to have abducted the child. A significant percentage of reported federal child abduction cases in Florida have been handled by this firm. The firm has also experienced success in recovering children from non-Hague countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

1. The Hague Convention refers to The Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.  The parties to the convention ratified it at the Hague on October 25, 1980.