Opinion ID: 3064528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Overview of the Hague Convention on the Civil

Text: Aspects of International Child Abduction (“Hague Convention”) The Hague Convention, to which both the United States and Mexico are parties,1 was enacted “to protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the State of their habitual residence . . . .” Hague Convention, preamble. “[T]he Convention’s drafters were concerned primarily with securing international cooperation regarding the return of children wrongfully taken by a parent from one country to another, often in the hope of obtaining a more favorable custody decision in the second country.” Gonzales v. Gutierrez, 311 F.3d 942, 944 (9th Cir. 2002); see also Hague Convention art. 3 (explaining when the 1 The United States Congress implemented the Convention’s provisions in 1988 with the passage of the International Child Abductions Remedies Act (“ICARA”), 42 U.S.C. § 11601 et seq. Mexico became a party to the Convention in 1991. See Duarte v. Bardales, 526 F.3d 563, 568 & n.7 (9th Cir. 2008). 3454 MENDOZA v. MIRANDA removal or retention of a child is “wrongful”).The Convention seeks generally to accomplish its aim by preventing an abducting parent from benefitting from his actions by requiring that a wrongfully removed child be returned to the country of its habitual residence for custody proceedings. See Hague Convention art. 12. The Convention explicitly does not purport to resolve the merits of any underlying custody disputes. See Hague Convention art. 19; see also Gonzalez, 311 F.3d at 945. Rather, “[t]he Convention’s focus is . . . whether a child should be returned to a country for custody proceedings and not what the outcome of those proceedings should be.” Holder v. Holder, 392 F.3d 1009, 1013 (9th Cir. 2004). Despite the Convention’s “desire to guarantee the reestablishment of the status quo disturbed by the actions of the abductor,” its drafters recognized the need for several important exceptions to the general rule of return. Elisa Perez-Vera, Explanatory Report ¶ 18, 3 Hague Conference on Private International Law, Acts and Documents of the Fourteenth Session, Child Abduction 426 (1982) [hereinafter “PerezVera Report”].2 One such exception is the affirmative defense provided in Article 12: If the abducting parent can show that the petition for return was filed more than a year after the wrongful removal or retention occurred, and “that the child is now settled in its new environment,” the abducting parent can overcome the presumption in favor of return. Hague Convention art. 123; see also 42 U.S.C. § 11603(e)(2)(B); Duarte, 2 The “Perez-Vera Report” is “recognized by the Conference as the official history and commentary on the Convention and is a source of background on the meaning of [its] provisions.” Shalit v. Coppe, 182 F.3d 1124, 1127-28 (9th Cir. 1999) (internal citation omitted). 3 The other exceptions to the Convention’s return mandate are: (1) consent to or acquiescence in the removal or retention by the non-abducting parent, (2) that return poses a grave risk of physical or psychological harm, or would place the child in an intolerable situation, (3) the objection of a child that “has attained an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of its views,” and (4) the return would not comport with “the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Hague Convention arts. 13, 20. MENDOZA v. MIRANDA 3455 526 F.3d at 569. The rationale behind Article 12’s “now settled” defense is that when “a child has become settled and adjusted in [his new environment, a] forced return might only serve to cause him or her further distress and accentuate the harm caused by the wrongful relocation.”). Beaumont & McEleavy, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction 203 (1999); see also Perez-Vera Report ¶ 107 (explaining that “it is clear that after a child has become settled in its new environment, its return should take place only after an examination of the merits of the custody rights exercised over it . . . .”). The Convention does not provide a definition of the term “settled.” However, the U.S. State Department has declared that “nothing less than substantial evidence of the child’s significant connections to the new country is intended to suffice to meet the respondent’s burden of proof.” Public Notice 957, Text & Legal Analysis of Hague International Child Abduction Convention, 51 Fed. Reg. 10494, 10509 (U.S. State Dep’t Mar. 26, 1986).