International Child Support Issues with a U.S. Element

• Author: Michael S. Coffee
• Pages: 30-32

30 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org

Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (hereinaf-

ter the Child Support Convention) has eect regarding

relations with the United States, (b) foreign reciprocating

countries (FRCs), (c) countries that have a relevant child

support arrangement in place with the appropriate U.S.

state, (d) countries that have enacted a law or established

procedures for the issuance and enforcement of support

orders that are substantially similar to the procedures

established by the law of the appropriate U.S. state, and (e)

all other countries. It is possible that a country will fall into

multiple categories. e relevance of each category will be

discussed below.

To determine whether the Child Support Convention has

eect regarding relations between the United States and a

foreign country, you should look to the status chart main-

tained by the Hague Conference on Private International

Law, www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-

table/?cid=131. Once you have identied the country in the

“Contracting Party” column, you should look to the “Type”

column. If the type is reected as “R” or “Ap,” then the

Convention does have eect regarding relations between the

United States and that country. If, however, the type is “A,”

International Child Support

Issues with a U.S. Element

By MICHAEL S. COFFEE

International family law matters arise with globalization and

the international movement of families. ese matters

include child support issues, among which are the establish-

ment, enforcement, and modication of orders. In many

respects, international child support issues are similar to

interstate issues. However, signicant dierences remain.

Six categories of international child support issues are

likely to present themselves to a U.S. practitioner: (1)

establishment of an order in the United States involving

persons outside of the United States, (2) establishment of an

order in another country involving persons in the United

States, (3) enforcement of a U.S. order in another country,

(4) enforcement of a foreign order in the United States, (5)

modication of a U.S. order in another country, and (6)

modication of a foreign order in the United States. Each of

these issues will be discussed in this article.

Once you have determined that you are presented with an

issue falling within one of the six aforementioned categories,

you should identify the foreign country, or countries,

involved. For purposes of these issues, there are eectively

ve categories of countries: (a) countries for which the 2007

Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 43, Number 2, Fall 2020. © 2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

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