Court Opinion

ID: 9493497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:10:00.777513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:52.653188
License: Public Domain

SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The central issue in this case is whether the ne exeat provision in the Hong Kong custody order confers on either Mr. Croll or the Hong Kong court “rights of custody” within the meaning of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“Hague Convention” or “Convention”). The majority concludes that it does not and, therefore, that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order Christina’s removal to Hong Kong. Interpreting the text of the Convention in light of its object and purpose, and taking into account the relevant case law in this area, I reach the opposite conclusion. In my view, the majority seriously misconceives the legal import of the ne exeat clause and, in so doing, undermines the Convention’s goal of “ensurfing] that rights of custody ... under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.” Hague Convention, art. 1, done Oct. 25, 1980, T.I.A.S. No. 11670 at 4, 1343 U.N.T.S. 89, 98, reprinted in 51 Fed. Reg. 10,494, 10,498 (1986), implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (“ICARA”), 42 U.S.C. § 11601 et seq. I therefore respectfully dissent.
The Hague Convention seeks “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, as well as to secure protection for rights of access.” Hague Convention, Preamble, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498. Significantly, the Convention draws a clear line between “rights of custody” and “rights of access,” reserving the remedy of return solely for breaches of the former. Compare Hague Convention, arts. 1, 3, id. (providing for the return of children removed or retained in violation of custody rights), with Hague Convention, .art. 21, id. at 10,500 (providing that a party may petition for arrangements, short of the child’s return, to secure the effective exercise of access rights). In this regard, the majority correctly observes that “an order of return is available only for wrongful removals or retentions, and removals or retentions are wrongful only if they are ‘in breach of rights of custody.’ ” Ante at 137 (quoting Hague Convention, art. 3, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498) (emphasis in original).
Article 3 of the Convention provides that the removal or retention of a child is “wrongful” where:
(a) it is in breach of rights of custody attributed to a person, an institution or any other body, either jointly or alone, under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention; and
(b) at the time of removal or retention those rights were actually exercised, either jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal or retention.
Hague Convention, art. 3, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498 (emphasis added). Thus, Mr. Croll cannot succeed in securing Christina’s return to Hong Kong unless he can demonstrate that her removal was “in breach of rights of custody” and, furthermore, that at the time of Christina’s removal from Hong Kong, those rights of custody “were actually exercised, either jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal.” Hague Convention, art 3, id. For the reasons discussed below, I conclude that Christina’s removal to the United States was “wrongful” under the Convention because (1) it constituted a “breach of rights of custody” jointly held by Mr. Croll and the Hong Kong court, and (2) Mr. Croll would have exercised his custody rights under the ne exeat clause in *145the custody order but for Christina’s removal from Hong Kong.
I. Was Christina Removed from Hong Kong “in Breach of Rights of Custody”?
Under the terms of the Hong Kong custody order, Ms. Croll is vested with “[tjhe custody, care and control” of Christina,1 and Mr. Croll is vested with rights of “reasonable access.” Particularly relevant to this case, however, is the order’s further grant of rights to Mr. Croll under the ne exeat clause. The parties agree that under this provision, Ms. Croll may not remove Christina from Hong Kong without the consent of either Mr. Croll or the Hong Kong court.2 In other words, the ne exeat clause confers a veto power on Mr. Croll to block Christina’s international relocation, unless the Hong Kong court explicitly approves such removal. In essence, the ne exeat clause endows Mr. Croll with significant decisionmaking power: absent an order of the Hong Kong court to the contrary, he can require that Christina remain in Hong Kong or, alternatively, he can use his veto power as leverage to influence Ms. Croll’s selection of the destination country. Because Mr. Croll may not invoke the Convention’s return remedy based on his “reasonable access” rights, the issue in this case is whether he may secure Christina’s return under the Convention by virtue of his rights under the ne exeat clause.
The majority mischaracterizes the issue as being a question of whether the ne exeat clause “transmutéis] access rights into rights of custody under the Convention.” Ante at 143. Clearly, the ne exeat clause works no such magic. In my view, the question presented is whether the ne exeat clause — wholly independent of Mr. Croll’s access rights — confers “rights of custody” under the Convention. The Convention’s text, object and purpose, as well as the relevant case law in this area, convincingly direct an answer in the affirmative.
A. The Text, Object, and Purpose of the Convention
The critical interpretive challenge in this case involves the definition of “rights of custody” as used in the Convention. The majority begins this undertaking by surveying a host of American dictionaries to support its “intuition that custody is something other and more than a negative right or veto.” Ante at 138. Relying on these sources, the majority finds that the “custody of a child entails the primary duty and ability to choose and give sustenance, shelter, clothing, moral and spiritual guidance, medical attention, education, etc., or the (revocable) selection of other people or institutions to give these things.” Ante at 138. While traditional American notions of custody rights are certainly relevant to our interpretation of the Convention, the construction of an international treaty also requires that we look beyond parochial definitions to the broader meaning of the Convention, and assess the “ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of [the Convention’s] object and purpose.” Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, art. 31.1, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, 340 (stating general rule on the interpretation of treaties); see also Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law § 325 (1987) (same).
*146Contrary to the majority’s position that “[n]othing in the Hague Convention suggests that the drafters intended anything other than this ordinary understanding of custody,” ante at 139, the Convention and its official history reflect a notably more expansive conception of custody rights. The report containing the official history and commentary on the Convention clarifies that “the intention [of the Convention] is to protect all the ways in which custody of children can be exercised.” Elisa Pér-ez-Vera, Explanatory Report to the Hague Conference on Private International Law, in 3 Acts and Documents of the Fourteenth Session (Child Abduction) 426, para. 71 (1980) (emphasis in original) (“Pérez-Vera Report”). This broad notion of custody rights is also consistent with Article 3, which provides that “rights of custody” may arise from a variety of sources, including by “operation of law or by reason of a judicial or administrative decision, or by reason of an agreement having legal effect under the law of [the child’s country of habitual residence].” Hague Convention, art. 3, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498. In this way, the Convention plainly favors “a flexible interpretation of the terms used, which allows the greatest possible number of cases to be brought into consideration.” Pérez-Vera Report, para. 67. Consequently, in determining whether the rights arising under a ne exeat clause constitute “rights of custody” under the Convention, I discern an intent of inclusion rather than exclusion, so as to effectuate the drafters’ goal of making the treaty applicable to all possible cases of wrongful removal.
Although the treaty does not generally define its legal terms, see Pérez-Vera Report, para. 83, the risk that “an incorrect interpretation of [custody and access rights] would ... compromis[e] the Convention’s objects” led the drafters to include Article 5, which offers further guidance on the meaning of the term “rights of custody.” See Pérez-Vera Report, para. 83. I note, however, that the provision was left deliberately vague due to the drafters’ failure to agree on a more precise definition. See Pérez-Vera Report, para. 84 (“[S]ince all efforts to define custody rights in regard to [particular situations] failed, one has to rest content with the general description given [in the text].”). Article 5 provides that:
For the purposes of this Convention—
(a) “rights of custody” shall include rights relating to the care of the person of the child and, in particular, the right to determine the child’s place of residence; ...
Hague Convention, art. 5, 51 Fed. Reg. 10,498 (emphasis added); see also Pérez-Vera Report, para. 84 (noting that under Article 5, “rights of custody” include those rights relating to the care of the child, and that the Convention seeks to clarify this otherwise general definition “by emphasizing, as an example of the ‘care’ referred to, the right to determine the child’s place of residence.”). As I interpret the Convention, rights arising under a ne exeat clause include the “right to determine the child’s place of residence” because the clause provides a parent with decisionmaking authority regarding a child’s international relocation. Thus the ne exeat clause vests both Mr. Croll and the Hong Kong court with “rights of custody” for the purposes of the Convention. See Hague Convention, art. 5, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498.
A parent’s ne exeat rights fit comfortably within the category of custody rights the Convention seeks to protect. The Convention states at its outset that its object is, along with returning children wrongfully removed from their habitual residence, “to ensure that rights of custody ... under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.” Hague Convention, art. 1, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498. The Pérez-Vera report explains that
the problem with which the Convention deals ... derives all of its legal importance from the possibility of individuals establishing legal and jurisdictional links [in the new country] which are more or *147less artificial. In fact, resorting to this expedient, an individual can change the applicable law and obtain a judicial decision favorable to him. [Such a decision] bears a legal title sufficient to “legalize” a factual situation which none of the legal systems involved wished to see brought about.
Pérez-Vera Report, para. 15. At its core, therefore, the Convention’s return remedy targets those individuals who cross international borders, presumably in search of a friendlier forum, flouting the custody law of the child’s home country in the process. See Blondin v. Dubois, 189 F.3d 240, 245-46 (2d Cir.1999) (describing the Convention’s purpose as “ ‘preserving] the status quo and ... deter[ring] parents from crossing international boundaries in search of a more sympathetic court.’ ”) (quoting Friedrich v. Friedrich, 983 F.2d 1396, 1400 (6th Cir.1993)).
In light of the Convention’s broad purpose, the concept of “wrongful removal” clearly must encompass violations of ne exeat rights. When a parent takes a child abroad in violation of ne exeat rights granted to the other parent by an order from the country of habitual residence, she nullifies that country’s custody law as effectively as does the parent who kidnaps a child in violation of the rights of the parent with physical custody of that child. Moreover, where, as here, the parent seeks a custody order in the new country, she seeks to legitimize the very action — removal of the child — that the home country, through its custody order, sought to prevent. To read the Convention so narrowly as to exclude the return remedy in such a situation would allow such parents to undermine the very purpose of the Convention.
B. The Majority’s Approach
In reaching the opposite conclusion, the majority contends that “rights of custody,” as used in the Convention, refers to a “bundle of rights” of which a parent must possess a certain portion in order to be protected by the Convention, and that possession of only one of those rights — in this case, the “right to determine the child’s place of residence” by exercising and leveraging a veto power over the child’s international relocation' — is insufficient to confer custody on the party possessing that power. See ante at 138-39. In my view, however, the Convention’s definition of “rights of custody” contemplates a bundle of rights that are protected regardless of whether a parent holds one, several or all such custody rights, and whether the right or rights are held singly or jointly with the other parent. In fact, the Convention expressly protects joint custody rights, see Hague Convention, art. 3, 51 Fed. Reg. at 10,498, which may assume a number of forms, including situations in which one parent possesses sole physical custody of the child but shares certain decisionmaking authority with the other parent. The Convention contains no indication that in such an arrangement, a parent must possess some minimum number of rights of custody in order to qualify for protection.
The majority also maintains that a parent’s ne exeat right does not equate with Article 5’s “right to determine the child’s place of residence” because the latter right necessarily entails “specific choices” regarding the child’s living situation rather than simply decisions regarding the country in which she lives. See ante at 139-40. Like the majority’s definition of “custody,” however, this conclusion ignores the basic international character of the Hague Convention. While such “specific choices” certainly constitute facets of custody, the broader decision as to whether a child will live in England or Cuba, Hong Kong or the United States, is precisely the kind of choice the Convention is designed to protect. See Pérez-Vera Report, para. 56 (“Although the Convention does not contain any provision which expressly states the international nature of the situations envisaged, such a conclusion derives as *148much from its title as from its various articles.... [T]he international nature of the Convention arises out of a factual situation, that is to say the dispersal of members of a family among different countries.”). The Hague Convention provides a remedy not when a parent moves the child from city to suburb or from home to boarding school, but when he or she transports the child across national borders. In light of this international context, the term “place of residence,” as used in the Convention, logically contemplates decisions regarding international relocation. Accordingly, the right to choose the country in which a child lives, like the authority over the child’s more specific living arrangements, constitutes a “right to determine the child’s place of residence” under Article 5, and thus a “right of custody” under the Convention.3
The majority avoids this conclusion by asserting that the power to determine a child’s country of residence “protects rights of custody and access alike, and [gives] no clue as to who has custody.” Ante at 139. But while such a power may have the effect of ensuring a parent’s reasonable access, and in fact may be included in a custody order for precisely that purpose, ne exeat rights circumscribe the choices of the parent with physical custody of the child in a way that “reasonable access” rights do not. Absent a ne exeat clause, the international relocation of a child does not necessarily violate the other parent’s access rights; the parents still may work out an arrangement that satisfies the rights of “reasonable access” even across international borders. On the other hand, when a parent expatriates her child without securing the necessary consent, she has, by definition, violated the other parent’s ne exeat rights.
The majority also posits that the Convention would be “unworkable” if it provided the return remedy for violations of a parent’s ne exeat rights. See ante at 140-41. Because an order of return can require only Christina, and not Ms. Croll, to return to Hong Kong, the majority claims that “we cannot plausibly read the Convention to compel the removal of a child from a parent who exercises all rights of care to a country in which no one has that affirmative power or duty.” Ante at 140-41. The majority mistakenly assumes that the custody order in a given case is the sole source of a parent’s rights and duties visa-vis his or her child. To the contrary, a parent’s duty to care for a child, like his or her rights of custody, may arise from many sources, including the law of the country of habitual residence. That the custody order in this case granted “custody, care and control” of Christina to Ms. Croll, therefore, does not direct the conclusion that Mr. Croll will have no responsibility to care for Christina upon her return to Hong Kong.4 I therefore reject the ma*149jority’s dire forecast that ordering Christina’s return, without Ms. Croll at her side, risks leaving Christina helpless in Hong Kong without parental care.
Moreover, the majority’s characterization of a return remedy for violations of ne exeat rights as unworkable fails to account for the Convention’s protection of any number of joint custody arrangements in which the parents trade physical custody or in which one parent possesses physical custody and the other parent contributes to decisions about the child’s upbringing. By the majority’s reasoning, were the parent with physical custody to remove the child from the country of habitual residence, the court would have no power to return the child, because no adult would be required to care for him or her upon return. Such a conclusion, however, would largely eviscerate the Convention’s protection of joint custody rights.
Far from being unworkable, the application of the return remedy in the context of ne exeat violations directly and fully advances the Convention’s goal of preventing parents from unilaterally circumventing the home country’s custody law. In contrast to access right violation cases where returning the child to her country of habitual residence would not itself guarantee the effective exercise of such rights, ordering the return of a child based on a ne exeat violation will, in and of itself, give full effect to a parent’s ne exeat rights.
Finally, the majority cites to a string of authorities under the caption “Intent of the Drafters” to support its narrow reading of the Convention. See ante at 141-43. With one exception, these authorities stand only for the unremarkable proposition that under the Convention, .the return remedy is unavailable for breaches of parents’ access rights.5 In sum, those authorities *150shed no light on the issue relevant here, i.e., whether ne exeat rights constitute “rights of custody” for the purposes of the Convention.
C. International Case Law
While not essential to my conclusion that ne exeat rights constitute “rights of custody” under the Convention, I note that my analysis is consistent with the decisions of most foreign courts to consider the issue. See generally Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 404, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985) (in construing the terms of a treaty, “the opinions of our sister signatories [are] entitled to considerable weight.”) (quoting Benjamins v. British European Airways, 572 F.2d 913, 919 (2d Cir.1978)). Given the desirability of uniformity in treaty interpretation, see Denby v. Seaboard World Airlines, Inc., 737 F.2d 172, 176 n. 5 (2d Cir.1984), these cases lend support to my understanding of the Convention.
Most foreign courts addressing this question have interpreted the notion of “rights of custody” broadly in light of the Convention’s purpose and structure. The Family Court of Australia, for example, has characterized the “spirit of the Convention” as ensuring “that children who are taken from one country to another wrongfully, in the sense of in breach of court orders or understood legal rights, are promptly returned to their country so that them future can properly be determined within that society.” In the Marriage of: Jose Garcia Resina Appellant/Husband and Munel Ghislaine Henriette Resina Respondent/Wife, Appeal No. 52, 1991 (Fam.) (Austl.), para. 26. Accordingly, the court held that the custody order at issue — which provided reciprocal ne exeat rights for each parent — created “rights of custody” in the otherwise non-custodial father.
The English Court of Appeal has employed a similarly broad reading of the Convention, holding that Article 5 “may in certain circumstances extend the concept of custody beyond the ordinarily understood domestic approach” so as to ensure “that within its scope [the Convention] is to be effective.” C. v. C., [1989] 1 W.L.R. 654, 658 (C.A.) (Eng.). In C. v. C., the court ordered the return of a child where an Australian order granted custody to the child’s mother, but also provided that the father arid mother would remain “joint guardians” and that neither parent could remove the child from Australia without the consent of the other. See id. at 656. Interpreting the language of Article 5, the court found that because the Australian custody order allowed the father to exercise a measure of control over the child’s place of residence, the father possessed “custody rights” within the meaning of the Convention:6
[T]he. father had, in my judgment, the right to determine that the child should reside in Australia or outside the jurisdiction at the request of the mother.... *151[He has] some control over not only the child leaving the jurisdiction, but also as a place to which the child was going, and not only the country; for instance, to live in London under suitable circumstances .... The father does not have the right to determine the child’s place of residence within Australia but has the right to ensure that the child remains in Australia or lives anywhere outside Australia only with his approval.
Id. at 658. The Israeli High Court of Justice, when presented with facts nearly identical to those in the instant case, similarly interpreted “rights of custody” to encompass a parent’s rights under a non-removal order. See C.A. 5271/92, Foxman v. Foxman (H.C.1992) (Isr.) (finding that the Convention’s definition of “custodial rights” should be “broadly construed,” so as to cover cases in which parental consent is required before a child is taken out of the country); cf. C.A. 1648/92, Tourna v. Meshulem (H.C.1992) (Isr.) (finding “rights of custody” in a father who, by virtue of a joint custody order, had authority to refuse consent to the child’s change in residence).
In addition to these cases, which address custody rights held by a parent with ne exeat rights, the English Court of Appeal has also held that a cowrt entering the custody order in the child’s place of habitual residence may itself possess “rights of custody” under the Convention in certain circumstances. See B. v. B., [1993] 2 All E.R. 144 (C.A.) (Eng.). The court in B. v. B. noted that under Article 3 an “institution or other body” as well as an individual may hold custody rights and thus conclude ed that the removal of the child by the parent with physical custody in breach of an interim custody order conditioned on the child remaining within the jurisdiction violated the rights of both the other parent and the court issuing the interim custody decree. See id. at 148-49. Echoing the reasoning of C v. C, the court found that because the restriction required the parent with physical custody to remain in the court’s jurisdiction, and thus impliedly gave the court and the parent without physical custody the right to veto an international move, it vested both with the power to determine the child’s residence. See id. at 148-49. The court therefore affirmed the order of return on the ground that the child’s removal had been wrongful within the meaning of the Convention. See id. at 153.7
These cases reflect strong support among our sister signatories for the proposition that “rights of custody” are implicated where a custody order vests either a parent or the court with the power to block a parent with physical custody from deciding to expatriate her child.8 While there are several cases in other jurisdictions that are certainly in tension with this view, I find the reasoning in those cases unpersuasive.
At least one French court has determined that a custody order requiring the *152mother to raise her children in England and Wales did not create custodial rights in the father because such a reading would infringe on the mother’s right to expatriate. See T.G.I. Periguex, Mar. 17, 1992, Ministere Public v. Mme. Y., D.S. Jur. 1992 (Fr.). However, the court in Mme. Y. did not address the meaning of Article 5’s “right to determine the child’s place of residence” provision and instead focused on the mother’s expatriation rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. See id. at 315-16. But deciding a Hague Convention case on the ground that the custodial parent must remain free to expatriate her child begs the crucial interpretive question of who, for purposes of the Convention, are “custodial parents” in the first place. Nothing in the Convention suggests that one parent’s right to expatriate overrides another parent’s rights of custody. On the contrary, the paramount importance the Convention places on custodial rights suggests that where custodial rights and expatriation rights conflict, the latter must yield to the former. To adopt another reading would, among other difficulties, make the Convention’s protection of joint custody impossible, as joint custody by its very nature limits each parent’s unilateral decision-making power, including his or her power to relocate to another country with the child. In my view, therefore, the legal presumption against restrictions on expatriation answers little.9
Apart from the Mme. Y. decision, two other cases are in tension with the proposition that ne exeat rights constitute “rights of custody” under the Convention. In two separate decisions, the Canadian Supreme Court has suggested — in dicta — that the Convention’s “wrongful removal” provision does not cover cases in which a parent acts in violation of an express provision in a custody order granting ne exeat rights. In the first, Thomson v. Thomson, [1994] 119 D.L.R. 4th 253 (Can.), the court ordered a child’s return based on an interim non-removal order in order to “preserve jurisdiction in the Scottish court to decide the issue of custody on its merits in a full hearing at a later date,” but noted in dicta that such a remedy would be unavailable for violation of a final non-removal order because the purpose of such an order was simply to “ensure permanent access to the non-custodial parent.” Id. at 281. In the second case, D.S. v. V.W. [1996] 134 D.L.R. 4th 481 (Can.), the court held that a return remedy was not available under the Convention for violation of an implicit removal restriction in a custody order, and — relying in part on the dicta in Thomson relating to express provisions in permanent custody orders — stated that a violation of such an implicit restriction would concern only access rights, not custodial rights. Id. at 501-06. However, the court nevertheless ultimately upheld the lower court’s order of return on the alternate ground that such return was in the best interests of the child under Quebec domestic legislation. Id. at 516-17.
. For the reasons explained above, supra I.A., I am unpersuaded by the argument that ne exeat clauses in permanent non-removal orders relate solely to access rights, the view endorsed by the Canadian Supreme Court. Nor do I consider significant the Canadian Supreme Court’s emphasis on the distinction between interim and permanent custody orders. To be sure, a court issuing an interim custody order has a strong interest in preventing a child’s removal before it has the opportunity to make its final custody determination. But nothing in the Convention’s language or official history supports the notion that this interest is any more important than the court’s interest in enforcing the final custody order once issued. The dichotomy between an interim and permanent custody order is, therefore, for the purposes of *153the Convention, a distinction without a difference.
I note also that while the D.S. decision to uphold the order of return was unanimous, six (out of nine) justices expressed reservations regarding the opinion’s analysis of custodial rights and obligations, see 134 D.L.R. 4th at 484, 518; see also Bailey, supra, at 49, thereby raising serious doubts as to whether the opinion’s conception of ne exeat clauses in relation to the Convention truly represents the rule in Canada. Scholars have also strongly criticized the Canadian interpretation of custody rights under the Convention. See, e.g., Bailey, supra, at 42-50; Linda Silberman, “Custody Orders Under the Hague Abduction Convention,” in A New Vision for a Non-Violent World: Justice for Each Child (Proceedings of the 4th Biennial International Conference of the International Association of Women Judges, 1999), at 235-240. Therefore, following what I consider to be the more compelling reasoning of the English, Australian, and Israeli cases, I would join the courts of those countries in finding that rights arising under a ne exeat clause constitute “rights of custody” for the purposes of the Hague Convention.
II. Did Mr. Croll Or The Hong Kong Court “Actually Exercise” Ne Exeat Rights?
Apart from the central issue of whether ne exeat rights constitute “rights of custody” under the Convention, the majority also holds that Mr. Croll’s petition fails to satisfy the requirement of Article 3(b) of the Convention, which provides:
The removal or retention of a child is to be considered wrongful where ... at the time of removal or retention those rights [of custody] were actually exercised, either jointly or alone, or would have been so exercised but for the removal or retention.
Hague Convention, art. 3(b), 51 Fed.Reg. at 10,498 (emphasis added). According to the majority, “[t]he right conferred by the ne exeat clause is not one that Mr. Croll ‘actually exercised,’ and it is circular to say that he would have exercised it but for Christina’s removal, because the right itself concerns nothing but removal itself, and would never have been exercised had Mrs. Croll been content to stay in Hong Kong during Christina’s minority.” Ante at 140 (emphasis in original).10 This description mischaracterizes the right that a ne exeat clause creates.
The right given to Mr. Croll and the Hong Kong court by the ne exeat clause was the authority to withhold or grant consent to removing Christina from Hong Kong. Had they refused to grant Ms. Croll permission to take Christina to the United States, or even had they agreed to grant permission, they would have “actually exercised” the custody rights granted by the custody order. While I agree that neither Mr. Croll nor the court did, in fact, “actually exercise” this right, it seems clear to me that Ms. Croll’s conduct in removing Christina without the necessary consent was precisely what prevented them from doing so. Because Ms. Croll deprived Mr. Croll and the court of the opportunity to exercise their veto power by surreptitiously removing Christina from Hong Kong without first seeking consent, the ne exeat right is one that “would have been so exercised” but for Christina’s unlawful removal. Article 3(b) therefore poses no barrier to finding that Christina’s removal was wrongful under the Convention.
For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that Christina’s removal from Hong Kong to the United States was “wrongful” under the Convention because her removal (1) constituted a “breach of rights of custody” jointly held by Mr. Croll and the Hong Kong court, and (2) Mr. Croll or the court — or both — would have exercised their veto rights under the ne exeat clause *154but for Christina’s removal from Hong Kong. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s decision to grant Mr. Croll’s petition for an order of return.

. The majority states that the custodj' order “confers the sole 'custody, care and control' ” upon Ms. Croll. Ante at 134 (emphasis added); see also id. at 139 (stating that "the custody order awards between custody and care and control solely to the mother”). However, nowhere does the Hong Kong court use the word "sole” or "solely” in connection with Ms. Croll’s custody rights.

. The Hong Kong custody order also provides that "[ejither parent may request the Immigration Department not to issue passports allowing the said child to go abroad without his/her knowledge.”

. To be sure, the right to prevent a child's removal from her home country does not constitute an absolute right “to determine the child's place of residence.” That a right is limited, however, does not render it meaningless for purposes of the Hague Convention. See Pérez-Vera Report, para. 71 (characterizing “joint custody” as "dividing the responsibilities inherent in custody rights between both parents”). Furthermore, that a right is a veto or "negative right” does not diminish its status as a right. See, e.g., Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dep’t of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 281, 110 S.Ct. 2841, 111 L.Ed.2d 224 (1990) (recognizing the due process right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment).

. The majority faults the dissent for its "assumption” that a court will "alter custody rights” upon the child’s return, and raises fears that absent such alteration, the child will be uncared for upon her return to Hong Kong. See ante at 141. Christina's care upon her return is neither premised on assumptions nor relevant to the issue before us. First, it strains credulity to suggest that a father who, as here, searches the world for his child to get her back and files a petition in a foreign forum in order to do so, would, upon succeeding in his efforts, simply permit his child to stand abandoned in the airport upon her return. The majority confuses physical care of a child with legally-ordered custody. Furthermore, if Christina’s care upon her return to Hong Kong were really a concern in the instant case, the appropriate remedy would not be reversal but a remand to the district court to assess the parties' intentions. *149See Feder v. Evans-Feder, 63 F.3d 217, 226 (3d Cir.1995) ("[I]n order lo ameliorate any short-term harm to the child, courts in the appropriate circumstances have made return contingent upon 'undertakings’ from the petitioning parent.”); In re Walsh, 31 F.Supp.2d 200, 207 (D.Mass.1998) ("Numerous courts granting petitions under the Convention have recognized the legitimacy of exacting appropriate undertakings from the parents designed to ensure that the children will be cared for properly during transit and that no harm will come to the children pending disposition in the country of habitual residence.”) (citations omitted), aff’d in part, rev’d in part on other grounds sub nom. Walsh v. Walsh, 221 F.3d 204 (1st Cir.2000). Second, the issues concerning Christina’s custody upon her return are beyond the scope of the Convention, which deals solely with returning a child to the country of habitual residence so that its courts, and not a foreign court in the country to which the child has been wrongfully removed, can adjudicate custody rights with respect to that child. This concept underlying the Convention — that the child is best served by entrusting decisions regarding his or her custody to the courts of the child's country of habitual residence — stands in direct contradiction to the majority's parochial view that foreign courts cannot be trusted in the same manner as American courts to competently make necessary decisions regarding the child. See ante at 141 ("on this point the dissent is generalizing from local American law”).

. The majority quotes A.E. Anton, the former chairman of the Hague Conference Commission, who opines that "breach of a right simply to give or to withhold consent to changes in a child’s place of residence is not to be construed as a breach of rights of custody in the sense of Article 3.” Ante at 141 (quoting A.E. Anton, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, 30 Int’l & Comp. L.Q. 537, 546 (1981)). Although Mr. Anton’s views support the majority’s interpretation of the Convention, the majority neglects to emphasize that his article represents only his personal views and not the official legislative history of the Convention. See Anton, supra at 537 ("This paper, however, must not be taken to reflect any views other than those of the author.”). His article is therefore appropriately viewed as simply the opinion of one scholar. Other scholars, in contrast, have concluded that ne exeat rights do constitute "rights of custody” under the Convention. See, e.g., Paul R. Beaumont & Peter E. McE-leavy, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction 72-73 (1999) ("If an individual is a child's sole custodian there are, prima facie, no restrictions on him relocating with that child. If there are such restrictions, that implies that the custody right must in some way be limited. Where this is so it must be that another body or individual holds a corresponding right in relation to the child. Therefore, should the primary carer remove the child abroad, ... he would have breached the custody rights of the other party, if their *150consent had not been sought.”) (emphasis in original); Linda Silberman, “Custody Orders Under the Hague Abduction Convention,” in A New Vision for a Non-Violent World: Justice for Each Child (Proceedings of the 4th Biennial International Conference of the International Association of Women Judges, 1999), at 236 (arguing that in cases of non-removal order violations, "a failure to recognize the Convention remedy of return would be inconsistent with the careful compromise [between custody and access rights] that the Convention definition [of custody rights] has put in place.”).

. The majority attempts to distinguish C. v. C. as involving an order of joint guardianship, see ante at 143, but the C. v. C. court explicitly relied on the language of the ne exeat provision and not the joint guardianship clause in determining that the father possessed “rights .of custody” under the Convention. See [1989] 1 W.L.R. at 657-58 ("[The lower court judge] heard argument as to the effect of .. . joint guardianship.... [Accordingly, l]he judge’s attention does not appear to have been sufficiently drawn to the effect on the definition in article 5 of the Convention of clause 2 of the November 1986 order, that neither parent should remove the child from Australia without the consent of the other.”).

. It is not apparent to me how the majority turns this case — involving a veto power over international relocation possessed by a court and a parent — into a decision that requires return of the child "whenever a court enters a custody order” that is violated, regardless of the terms of that order. See ante at 139-41. This dissent has never suggested that Mr. Croll or the court would be entitled to an order of return if they did not possess ne exeat rights, nor does B v. B or this dissent suggest that return would be required in the scenario posed by the majority of "expatriation in derogation solely of parental rights of access.” See ante at 139-40.

. Although the majority states that "we and the district court are the only courts in the United States,” ante at 136, to consider the issue before us, I note that two American courts have also recognized "rights of custody” in connection with custody orders containing a ne exeat clause. See David S. v. Zamira S., 151 Misc.2d 630, 574 N.Y.S.2d 429 (N.Y.Fam.Ct.1991); Janakakis-Kostun v. Janakakis, 6 S.W.3d 843 (Ky.Ct.App.1999), review denied (Dec. 9, 1999), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 121 S.Ct. 32, - L.Ed.2d - (2000). In my view, however, these cases are of limited utility because they fail precisely to *152define “custodial rights’’ or to differentiate them from access rights.

. I also note that courts in France appear divided on this issue. See Martha Bailey, “Rights of Custody" Under the Hague Convention, 11 B.Y.U. J. Pub.L. 33, 40 (1997) (discussing French cases).

. Ms. Croll does not argue on appeal that Mr. Croll’s petition was defective under Article 3(b) of the Convention. The majority reaches this issue sua sponte.