REPORT for CONGRESS June 2004
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The Law Library of Congress REPORT FOR CONGRESS June 2004 Directorate of Legal Research LL File No. 2004-92 HAGUE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION An analysis of the applicable law and institutional framework of fifty-one jurisdictions and the European Union. James Madison Memorial Building; 101 Independence Avenue, S.E.; Room LM 240; Washington, DC 20540-3001 Reception: (202) 707-5065 – FAX: (202) 707-1820 PUBLICATIONS OF THE LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Reports for Congress are produced by the Directorate of Legal Research of the Law Library of Congress in response to requests from Congress on issues concerning international, comparative, and foreign law. The Directorate’s legal specialist staff of foreign-trained lawyers from over 20 jurisdictions, assisted by multilingual legal research analysts, respond to Congressional research and reference inquiries on the legal systems of all nations, past and present, on the basis of the Law Library’s global collection. Law Library responses are delivered in whatever format is best suited to the recipient and may be in the form of newly commissioned single-jurisdiction or multinational legal reports, previously prepared studies, confidential memoranda, quick-answer oral consultations, briefings in a Member’s office, or expert witness testimony at committee hearings. We invite you to visit the Law Library website at www.loc.gov/law, which details all of our services and provides access to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), a cooperative international database of official texts of laws, regulations, and other complementary legal sources of many foreign jurisdictions. We also invite you to visit our Congress-only website at www.loc.gov/law/congress for other Law Library products that are produced in response to recurring congressional interest. An online monthly, the Law Library’s World Law Bulletin, keeps Members and staff up-to-date in a concise way about legal developments worldwide. Foreign Law Briefs cover topical legal issues and Country Law Studies provide overviews of legal systems of individual nations. Congressional workload permitting, the Law Library also serves the research needs of the other branches of the U.S. government and renders reference service in international, comparative, and foreign law to the general public, including international organizations, embassies, state governments, and the professional legal, academic, and library communities. The principal resources for all Law Library publications are its collection and research staff. The Law Library’s holdings of over 2.6 million volumes constitute the world’s largest and most comprehensive legal collection. Its staff of over forty-five legal specialists, researchers, and librarians – competent in more than fifty languages – can provide research and reference information on all of the major legal systems of the world, contemporary and historical. For further information about the topic of this publication, the Global Legal Information Network, or for making a research request on international, comparative, or foreign law, please contact the Director of Legal Research, Walter Gary Sharp, Sr., who may be reached by phone at (202) 707-9148, by email at [email protected], or by fax at (202) 707-1820. Research requests may also be directed to the Law Library’s Congress-only Hotline at (202) 707-2700, which is staffed whenever either Chamber is in session, even beyond normal working hours. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540 LAW LIBRARY Tel.: (202) 707-9148 DIRECTORATE OF LEGAL RESEARCH Fax: (202) 707-1820 June 22, 2004 Honorable Richard G. Lugar, Chairman Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Ranking Member Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-6225 Dear Senator Lugar and Senator Biden: In response to your request for the Law Library of Congress to update our previous report of August 2000 on the Hague Convention (No. 28, 1980) on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, it is my pleasure to transmit to you an updated and significantly expanded series of comparative analyses that provide a detailed introduction to the Hague Convention No. 28, a discussion of the implications of relevant European Union regulation, and fifty-one national reports that detail the applicable law and institutional framework applicable to the Hague Convention No. 28 in those countries. This Convention has been recognized by some as one of the most successful of the more than forty Hague Conventions that have been coordinated and drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, an intergovernmental organization that works toward the progressive unification of private international law. Certainly few issues are more important than ensuring that the best interests of children are addressed when custodial relationships are complicated by transnational boundaries. The Law Library staff of foreign law attorneys and analysts who prepared these analyses take great pride in serving as the legal research arm of the United States Congress. Although there are too many of them to recognize by name here, they are identified in the table of contents and at the end of their respective works. The four additional members of our staff who deserve great credit for the editing and assembly of this report are Jamie Martin, our Editor; Irene Chang, our Directorate Secretary; Lisa Ann Tekancic, my Administrative Assistant; and Kersi Shroff, the Chief of our Western Law Division. On behalf of Dr. Rubens Medina, the Law Librarian of Congress, we hope that this report will assist the Committee in its important work. Respectfully submitted, WALTER GARY SHARP, SR. Director of Legal Research NOTE ON METHODOLOGY The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations requested the Law Library of Congress to update its previous report of August 2000 on the Hague Convention (No. 28, 1980) on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and to add, to the extent possible, reports on all of those jurisdictions that are recognized by the United States as parties to the Convention. Of the seventy-nine jurisdictions (not including the United States) that are a party to the Hague Convention No. 28 as of May 4, 2004, the United States recognizes fifty-nine jurisdictions as a party; this series of comparative analyses includes reports on forty-nine of those fifty-nine jurisdictions. It also provides a detailed introduction, a discussion of the implications of relevant European Union regulation, analyses on two additional jurisdictions (Belarus and Georgia) not recognized as a party by the United States, a chart that provides the dates for entry into force for the eighty parties, a detailed bibliography, and the text of the Convention. The remaining ten jurisdictions recognized by the United States as a party that are not addressed in this report were omitted, because the Law Library did not have either the expertise on staff or the collections available to prepare a report, or because the party has done very little or nothing to implement the Hague Convention No. 28. Appendix A identifies those parties to the Hague Convention No. 28 that are not covered by this report. It is also important to note that the enclosed report on Denmark was not updated from our previous report of August 2000 because we no longer have a Nordic law specialist on staff. Finally, most reports contain Uniform Resource Locator (URL) references and citations to websites that are not part of the loc.gov domain. These URLs are provided to cite authority to the source of information that we have relied upon to prepare the report and as a convenience for the reader; however, some of these online references may link to subscription services not generally available to the public or may not be maintained by the originators. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL ........................................... i NOTE ON METHODOLOGY ............................................ ii INTRODUCTION Wendy Zeldin ........................................... 1 IMPLICATIONS OF EUROPEAN UNION REGULATION Theresa Papademetriou ........ 9 COUNTRIES PARTY TO THE CONVENTION IN THIS REPORT ARGENTINA Graciela I. Rodriguez-Ferrand ............................ 15 AUSTRALIA Kersi B. Shroff and Donald DeGlopper ....................... 23 AUSTRIA Edith Palmer .......................................... 33 BAHAMAS Stephen F. Clarke ...................................... 43 BELARUS, REPUBLIC OF Peter Roudik .............................. 49 BELGIUM George Glos .......................................... 55 BELIZE Krishan Nehra ........................................... 57 BERMUDA Clare Feikert .......................................... 61 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Peter Roudik ........................... 69 BRAZIL Fernanda C.A. Freitas ..................................... 75 CANADA Stephen F. Clarke ....................................... 85 CAYMAN ISLANDS Clare Feikert ................................... 93 CHILE Graciela I. Rodriguez-Ferrand ................................. 97 COLOMBIA Graciela I. Rodriguez-Ferrand ............................ 105 CROATIA, REPUBLIC OF Peter Roudik ............................. 113 CYPRUS Theresa Papademetriou .................................... 119 CZECH REPUBLIC George Glos .................................. 125 DENMARK Fariborz Nozari ...................................... 129 ECUADOR Graciela I. Rodriguez-Ferrand ............................. 133 FALKLAND ISLANDS Clare Feikert ...............................