Opinion ID: 76527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: International Cases

Text: 92 The United States Supreme Court has established that in interpreting the language of treaties, we find the opinions of our sister signatories to be entitled to considerable weight. Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 404, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 1345, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Although the decisions of foreign courts are not essential to our analysis, our reasoning and conclusions are in harmony with the majority of the courts of our sister signatories that have addressed this treaty issue. 93 Specifically, courts in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and Israel have adopted a broad view of rights of custody, and ordered return under the Hague Convention where a child is removed in violation of a ne exeat right. Those courts have stressed the need for enforcement of custody orders (including ne exeat clauses), the spirit of the Convention, and the desirability of uniformity in ordering the return of children removed in violation of a ne exeat provision. See C. v. C., 1 W.L.R. 654, 658 (Eng.C.A.1989) (holding that a ne exeat right provided the father with a measure of control over the child's place of residence sufficient to create a right of custody under the Hague Convention); In the Marriage of: Jose Garcia Resina Appellant/Husband and Muriel Ghislaine Henriette Resina Respondent/Wife, [No. 52] (1991) (Austl.Fam.), ¶ 26 (adopting the approach of C. v. C. based on (1) the desirability of uniformity among common law countries, and (2) its view that return of a child removed in violation of a ne exeat order is the result which is in conformity with the spirit of the Convention which is to ensure that children who are taken from one country to another wrongfully, in the sense of breach of court orders or understood legal rights, are promptly returned to their country so that their future can properly be determined within that society); Sonderup v. Tondelli, 2000(1) Constitutional Court of South Africa 1171, ¶ 25(CC) (holding that the mother, who had custody under a British Columbia order, was effectively entitled to exercise her custody rights only in British Columbia (save an authorized period), and her failure to return the child to British Columbia as required under the order was a breach of the conditions of her custody as well as the father's rights); C.C. (T.A.) 2898/92, Foxman v. Foxman, 1992 (H.C.) (Isr.) (concluding that the term custodial rights under the Hague Convention should be broadly construed to include cases in which parental consent is required to remove a child from the country of residence). 94 The English Court of Appeal has also suggested that under some circumstances a court entering the custody order in the child's country of habitual residence may itself have custody rights that are violated by the removal of the child without the court's consent. B. v. B., 3 W.L.R. 865 (Eng.C.A.1993) (noting that under Article 3 an institution or other body may hold custody rights, and determining that removal of the child from a court's jurisdiction could violate the court's custody rights). 95 We acknowledge that foreign courts have not unanimously agreed with our decision here. Canadian and French courts have taken the opposite position, concluding that removal of a child in violation of a ne exeat right does not constitute wrongful removal under the Hague Convention. However, the decisions of the English, Australian, South African, and Israeli courts cited above resonate more richly than those of the French and Canadian courts, due to their more persuasive reasoning as well as their stronger numbers. Indeed, the Canadian Supreme Court's suggestion on two occasions that a ne exeat right falls short of a custody right has been dicta both times. Thomson v. Thomson, [1994] 3 S.C.R. 551 (Can.) (ordering return of a child based on violation of a ne exeat clause in an interim custody order to preserve jurisdiction in the Scottish court for a final determination, but noting in dicta that the return remedy would be unavailable in the context of a final order because the purpose of such an order was simply to protect access rights); D.S. v. V.W. [1996] 2 S.C.R. 108 (Can.) (holding that a return remedy was not available for violation of an implicit removal restriction, and stating in dicta that such a violation would concern only access rights, not custody rights). At least one French court has refused to order return of children to the United Kingdom because it viewed the custody order requiring that the mother raise her children in England and Wales as an impermissible restriction on the mother's right to expatriate. T.G.I. Periguex, Mar. 17, 1992, Ministere Public v. Mme. Y., D.S. Jur.1992 (Fr.). We view as misguided the French court's focus on the mother's right to expatriate rather than the issues of custody set forth in the Hague Convention. 13