What remedies are available to left-behind parents when a child is removed from the child’s primary country to another country?
There has been a recent uptick in the number of cases where a parent unilaterally removes a child from the child’s place of residence to another country in an attempt to be the child’s sole parent. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction (read the text of the treaty here) is a multilateral treaty ratified by 98 countries as of May 2018 providing an expeditious protocol for the return of a child unilaterally removed from the home country. The treaty requires the country to return a child when wrongfully removed in breach of the custody rights of the left-behind parent. The law of the state/country where the child resided determines the “custody rights”, which provides some fluidity in the laws.