Proceedings Under the Hague Child Abduction Convention: 2018-2019

• Author: Robert G. Spector
• Pages: 313-325

313

Proceedings Under the Hague Child

Abduction Convention: 2018–2019

ROBERT G. SPECTOR*

Introduction

Most U.S. international family law litigation involved the Hague

Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction1 and

its implementing legislation, the International Child Abduction Remedies

Act (ICARA).2 U.S. federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction

to decide on a request for the return of a child under the Convention.

The Convention operates to promptly return children to their habitual

residence. To obtain an order returning a child, the petitioner must prove

that the child was wrongfully removed from, or retained outside, of the

child’s “habitual residence” and that the petitioner had “a right of custody,”

which he/she was “actually exercising” (or would have exercised but for

the abduction), under the law of the child’s habitual residence.3

1. Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Oct. 25, 1980,

1343 U.N.T.S. 89 [hereinafter the Child Abduction Convention].

2. The International Child Abduction Remedies Act, 22 U.S.C. §§ 9001–9011 (1988)

  

U.S.C. §§ 11603–11610 (1988)).

3. As is often noted, the law of the Child Abduction Convention is relatively straightforward,

but the facts can be complicated, although some cases are fairly easy to determine. See, e.g.,

Quintero v. De Loera Barba, No. CV 5:19-148, 2019 WL 1386556 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 27, 2019),

appeal dismissed sub nom. Pinto Quintero v. De Loera Barba, No. 19-50275, 2019 WL 4673234

(5th Cir. Aug. 15, 2019).

* Robert G. Spector is the Glenn R. Watson Chair and Centennial Professor of Law Emeritus

at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in Norman, Oklahoma, and is a member of the

Family Law Quarterly Editorial Board.

Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 53, Number 4, Winter 2020. © 2020 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

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