Opinion ID: 4348461
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of

Text: International Child Abduction Article 1 of the Convention has two primary objectives: “(a) to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State; and (b) to ensure that rights of custody and of access under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.”10 The Convention requires that the petitioner seeking return of the child bear the initial burden of showing that the child was habitually resident in a State signatory to the Convention and was wrongfully removed to a different State, as defined by Article 3. Where a court determines a child has been wrongfully removed, Article 12 of the Convention provides that the child is to be returned “forthwith,” as long as the proceedings have been “commenced” in the “judicial or administrative authority of the Contracting State where the child is” less than one year before the date of wrongful removal.11 But where the petitioner fails to commence the proceedings before the oneyear deadline, s/he is no longer entitled to the child’s automatic return. Instead, a rebuttable presumption arises whereby the child’s return is subject to certain affirmative defenses, including demonstration that “the child is now settled in its new environment.”12 The Convention sets out a total of five defenses to a Contracting State’s duty to return the child. The first is the one 10 Karpenko, 619 F.3d at 263 (quoting Hague Convention, supra note 2, at art. 1). 11 Hague Convention, supra note 2, at art. 12. 12 Id. 5 just mentioned: where the child is well settled in his or her new environment.13 A second exception applies where the petitioner was not exercising custody rights at the time of the child’s wrongful removal or retention, or acquiesced in the removal or retention.14 A third exception applies where “there is a grave risk that [the child’s] return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation.”15 There is a fourth exception if the child objects to being returned and has “attained an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of [the child’s] views.”16 The fifth and final exception is where “[t]he return of the child . . . would not be permitted by the fundamental principles of the requested State relating to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”17 Significantly, the Convention establishes neither the degree of certainty nor the burden of proof that a respondent must establish to defeat the petition and retain custody of the child pursuant to these affirmative defenses.18