Opinion ID: 799335
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Narrow Exception for “Grave Risk”

Text: A close look at the proceedings that led to the Hague Convention shows that its framers and ratifiers foresaw the path my colleagues take in this case, warned against it, and drafted language as clearly as they could to prevent courts from broadening a Hague Convention case into a complete and prolonged custody battle. The basic premise of the Hague Convention is to protect the best interests of all children by removing the incentive to abduct children involved in custody disputes and to return an abducted child to her country of habitual residence, promptly, and without attempting to determine merits of the underlying custody dispute. 42 U.S.C. § 11601(a)(4); Blondin v. Dubois, 189 F.3d 240, 245 (2d Cir. 1999); Friedrich v. Friedrich, 983 F.2d 1396, 1400 (6th Cir. 1993); Fabri v. Pritikin-Fabri, 221 F. Supp. 2d 859, 863 (N.D. Ill. 2001). The central provision of the Convention, Article 12, provides what is known as the return remedy: “Where a child has been wrongfully removed or retained in terms of Article 3 . . . the authority concerned shall 4 No. 12-1692 order the return of the child forthwith.” See Abbott v. Abbott, 130 S. Ct. 1983, 1989 (2010). In drafting the Convention, it was recognized, of course, that there could be exceptional circumstances in which the return remedy should be denied, including cases where return would endanger the child. The drafters considered a number of different formulations for this exception. Their debates show that they recognized that if the exception were too broad, or were interpreted too broadly, it could effectively undermine the entire Convention. The drafters first considered “substantial risk” and other, even less demanding formulations in the English texts of the proposals, such as exceptions for the best interests of the child or for the forum nation’s public policy. Those less demanding standards were all rejected in favor of the “grave risk” language in Article 13(b). They were rejected precisely because they would create too great a risk that the courts would delve into the merits of the ultimate custody determination. See, e.g., 1980 Conference de La Haye de droit international prive, Enlévement d'enfants, in 3 Actes et Documents de la Quatorziéme session (“Actes”), pp. 168, 182-83, 203-04, 362 (1982).1 These concerns are clear in participating nations’ comments on the earlier, less demanding standards. Germany, for 1 Such negotiating records can be helpful in interpreting disputed terms in international treaties. E.g., Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155, 184-87 (1993). No. 12-1692 5 example, provided a warning that predicts our handling of this case: The wider and vaguer the provision is worded, the greater the margin for the ‘abductor’ successfully to resist the return of the child. In the interest of an effective ‘functioning’, therefore, the exceptions should be restricted as closely as possible and only the situations really worthy of an exception should be provided for. This is also in accordance with the purpose of the Convention to return the child as quickly as possible. The wide scope of discretion now left to the competent authorities under [the “substantial risk” exception] may result in a considerable delay of the return. Expert opinions may be called for as well as second opinions by other experts which will take much time, investigations of fact may be made by which matters could easily be delayed. Actes p. 216 (emphasis added). Of particular interest to our Congress or to United States courts, perhaps, are the comments of the United States delegation, which sharply criticized the early “substantial risk” proposal: The United States is seriously concerned about the farreaching inroads [the article that later became Article 13] makes into the ‘prompt return’ principle. The very objects of the Convention may be defeated if this article is adopted in its present form. As the Swiss Delegate, Mr Beachler, stated in 1976, the status quo ante must be re-established before there is any other discussion. Only after the return of the child to the country of origin may the merits be considered. 6 No. 12-1692 [This article] retains little of the ‘restoration of custody’ concept or of ‘prompt return’ without examination of the merits. Its broad exceptions will tend to turn virtually every return proceeding into an adversary contest on the merits of the custody question. No abductor’s lawyer would fail to raise one or more of the exceptions. Actes p. 242 (emphasis added; citation omitted). The Convention adopted the stricter “grave risk” standard to prevent or at least discourage such efforts to broaden the scope of court proceedings seeking return of a child. The drafters were familiar with the practice of courts relying on such broad standards to resist demands that abducted children be returned to their countries of habitual residence. Actes pp. 182-83. The Convention was designed to end that practice. The Explanatory Report for the final text of the Convention explained: [I]t must not be forgotten that it is by invoking ‘the best interests of the child’ that internal jurisdictions have in the past often finally awarded the custody in question to the person who wrongfully removed or retained the child. It can happen that such a decision is the most just, but we cannot [ignore] the fact that recourse by internal authorities to such a notion involves the risk of their expressing particular cultural, social etc. attitudes which themselves derive from a given national community and thus basically imposing their own subjective value judgments upon the national community from which the child has recently been snatched. No. 12-1692 7 Actes p. 431. On the exception for grave risk, the Explanatory Report warned more specifically against expansive interpretation: To conclude our consideration of the problems with which this paragraph deals, it would seem necessary to underline the fact that the three types of exception to the rule concerning the return of the child must be applied only so far as they go and no further. This implies above all that they are to be interpreted in a restrictive fashion if the Convention is not to become a dead letter. In fact, the Convention as a whole rests upon the unanimous rejection of this phenomenon of illegal child removals and upon the conviction that the best way to combat them at an international level is to refuse to grant them legal recognition. The practical application of this principle requires that the signatory States be convinced that they belong, despite their differences, to the same legal community within which the authorities of each State acknowledge that the authorities of one of them – those of the child’s habitual residence – are in principle best placed to decide upon questions of custody and access. As a result, systematic invocation of the said exceptions, substituting the forum chosen by the abductor for that of the child’s residence, would lead to the collapse of the whole structure of the Convention by depriving it of the spirit of mutual confidence which is its inspiration. Actes pp. 434-35 (emphasis added). Turning from the Hague Convention itself to its implementation by the United States, the Congress emphasized these same points, recognizing the temptation to turn Hague Convention proceedings into full-blown custody fights. 8 No. 12-1692 Congress found that children who have been wrongfully removed or retained “are to be promptly returned unless one of the narrow exceptions set forth in the Convention applies.” 42 U.S.C. § 11601(a)(4). Congress declared: “The Convention and this chapter empower courts in the United States to determine only rights under the Convention and not the merits of any underlying child custody claims.” 42 U.S.C. § 11601(b)(4). The State Department advised Congress that the exceptions were “drawn very narrowly lest their application undermine the express purposes of the Convention – to effect the prompt return of abducted children,” and that Convention delegates believed that “courts would understand and fulfill the objectives of the Convention by narrowly interpreting the exceptions and allowing their use only in clearly meritorious cases, and only when the person opposing return had met the burden of proof.” Hague International Child Abduction Convention; Text and Legal Analysis, 51 Fed. Reg. 10,494, 10,509 (March 26, 1986). More specifically on the “grave risk” exception, the State Department explained: This provision was not intended to be used by defendants as a vehicle to litigate (or relitigate) the child’s best interests. Only evidence directly establishing the existence of a grave risk that would expose the child to physical or emotional harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation is material to the court’s determination. The person opposing the child’s return must show that the risk to the child is grave, not merely serious. No. 12-1692 9 Id. at 10,510.2 One critical provision of the implementing legislation in the United States dealt with burdens of proof. In implementing the “grave risk” exception, Congress imposed on a respondent (the mother in our case) the burden of proving the exception “by clear and convincing evidence.” 42 U.S.C. § 11603(e)(2)(A) (referring to Article 13(b) of the Convention). That demanding standard of proof was properly the focus for the district court and should be our focus as well. The choice to impose that high burden of proof was designed to make a difference, and should make a difference, in cases exactly like this one where it is difficult to make a reliable factual determination. Reasonable people may debate whether the “grave risk” standard is sufficiently sensitive to legitimate claims of abuse, without being over-sensitive to false or exaggerated claims. Some of the advocates’ and scholars’ law journal articles cited by the majority argue that the “grave risk” standard is too difficult for victims of domestic violence to satisfy. See, e.g., Karen Brown Williams, Fleeing Domestic Violence: A Proposal to Change the Inadequacies of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in Domestic Violence Cases, 4 J. Marshall L.J. 39 (2011); Roxanne Hoegger, What if She Leaves? Domestic Violence Cases Under the Hague Convention and the Insufficiency of the Undertakings Remedy, 18 Berkeley Women’s L.J. 181 (2003); Merle H. Weiner, International Child Abduction and the Escape from Domestic Violence, 69 Fordham L. 2 The executive branch’s interpretation of a treaty is entitled to “great weight.” Abbott, 130 S. Ct. at 1993, quoting Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U.S. 176, 185 (1982). 10 No. 12-1692 Rev. 593 (2000). As the majority points out, the proportion of international child abduction cases where the abductor is herself fleeing a violent or psychologically abusive situation has grown much higher than was anticipated by the Convention or by Congress. The demanding “grave risk” standard, requiring proof by clear and convincing evidence, creates the possibility that an abusive parent could use the Convention, which was enacted to protect children, to have courts order those children back into harm’s way. The Convention drafters were aware of this possibility. The “grave risk” exception was a compromise designed to address the problem narrowly, without inviting abducting parents and their lawyers to broaden litigation over the return remedy to include a full custody battle. The drafters recognized that allowing such broader litigation would undermine the ability of the Convention to protect those other children who are abducted by their abusers or by parents who seek to use them as leverage. Our job, of course, is to apply the Convention and the legislation themselves, not the scholarly criticisms and proposals for improvements in them. See also Merle H. Weiner, Navigating the Road Between Uniformity and Progress: The Need for Purposive Analysis of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 33 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 275, 279-80 (2002) (noting concern about effects of judicial manipulation of Convention in cases involving claims of domestic violence). Before moving to the specifics of our case, and the majority’s criticisms of the district court’s handling of this case, one should not forget the Hague Convention’s emphasis on prompt decisions. Article 11 provides: “The judicial or administrative authorities of Contracting States shall act expeditiously in No. 12-1692 11 proceedings for the return of children.” What is expeditious? Article 11 provides further that if the entire petition is not decided within six weeks from the start of the proceedings, the interested parties and countries have a right to an explanation for the delay. That’s a mild sanction, but it certainly gives us a target. In this case we are already well past that point, and the reversal here points toward more weeks or months of litigation in the district court. That need for a prompt decision on the remedy of return gives district courts a good deal of flexibility in deciding the procedures they will use to decide these petitions. In Norinder v. Fuentes, 657 F.3d 526 (7th Cir. 2011), for example, we affirmed the remedy of return after expedited proceedings with limited and expedited discovery. We said: “The Convention and its implementing Act are chock full of the language of urgency and in no uncertain terms contemplate expedited procedures to guarantee that children are returned quickly to the correct jurisdiction.” Id. at 533. In essence, a district judge facing a Hague Convention petition should ordinarily use the expedited procedures that apply to motions for temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. Our appellate review of the procedural choices should respect the time pressures and allow for some flexibility, some discretion, and even some imperfections.