The creation of an International
Judiciary College And Training
Center is perhaps the singular most important step that can create the
greatest impact of protecting the hundreds of thousands of children each
year who are targeted for international abduction and trafficking. The reality
is the vast majority of judges overseeing international parental child
abduction cases are not trained in the complex legal, psychological, political,
financial, and logistical matters that all impact abduction cases.
Given its expertise on
the operation of all relevant Hague Conventions, including of course the 1980
Hague Child Abduction Convention, and experience in providing technical
assistance to judges and other relevant actors involved in their operation, we
suggest and hope that the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference can be
prominently associated to this proposal and become an integral part of its
realization.
We
believe that the Hague Child Abduction Convention is
the right mechanism that all nations must participate in and uphold; however,
untrained judges and courts have in fact led to many previous failures
including failure to properly and expeditiously oversee legal
proceedings seeking the return of abducted children to their country of
habitual residency.
In
addition, failures to have a highly educated global judiciary deeply familiar
with child abduction have caused diplomatic unease with the potential of severe
long-term problems. For example, if a Hague signatory country that
believes other Hague signatory countries do not uphold the intent and spirit of
the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Prevention and decide to impose their own penalties
and sanctions on countries that do not adhere to the Hague Child Abduction
Convention we may have a
significant disaster on our hands. The
risk that any legislation that seeks sanctions from a member-state against
another state may have the potential to remove the validity of the
international treaty and may in reality cause more children who are abducted to
not be returned to their country of original jurisdiction particularly
if countries take matters into their own hands and remove diplomacy.
Should
other states signatories of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction
Convention implement similar law or policy that seeks sanctions
against one another, one of two things may happen. The first is (and we hope
this is the case) that more states will comply with the spirit and intent of
the abduction convention. The second possibility is that new laws and policies
established to sanction non-compliance could lead to the demise and viability
of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.
Creating
an International Judiciary College and Training Center ideally under the
auspices of the Permanent Bureau and capable of training on an ongoing basis a
significant number of judges and other relevant actors involved in the
operation of the 38 Conventions adopted under the auspices of the Hague
Conference on Private International Law including the 1980 Hague Child
Abduction Convention would have a dramatic impact on reducing the global
abduction rate while also increasing diplomatic relationships
amongst countries as it is highly conceivable that the existing issues of
lack of judicial compliance and adherence to the abduction convention would be
mooted as more judges become trained on Hague matters.
Unquestionably,
we acknowledge the existence of significant failures amongst the judiciary and
support personnel (including untrained child therapist and psychologist who are
hired to assist in abduction matters but who do not understand the unique and
complex issues surrounding abduction and child custody) around the world to
understand the scope and nature of parental abduction and the tendency of
untrained judiciary to allow abduction defense litigation to derail the very
nature and scope of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention
that’s very purpose is to determine which court has a right of jurisdiction
on a child’s welfare and then to return that child to such jurisdiction. Equally,
there are grave challenges many children of abduction face post-reunification.
The majority of the hardship a child faces often revolves around new actions
created by the abducting parent who was forced to return with the child to the
country of original jurisdiction. In these cases the abducting parent will
often make new false claims against their previous victimized targeted parent
in hope to create an environment that would enable them to remove the child
from the country or original jurisdiction. At times this is done illegally and
at other times new charges of abuse are levied in hope that a court will grant
the previous abduction parent full custody of the child coupled with mobility
to relocate abroad. The challenge in
post abduction cases where new allegations of abuse are made is that all actors
involved in protecting the child’s best interest – judges, law enforcement, child
therapist and evaluators, and social workers – all must consider the previous
abusive act of abduction and the intent of the complainant who makes the
allegations against the previous left-behind parent.
Failure
to thoroughly consider all abduction events and weight the horrendous acts of
abuse related to a child’s abduction is in fact a complete and unacceptable
failure for a legal system and its actors to protect a child.
Sadly,
lack of understanding concerning the unique matters associated with international
parental child abduction during and post-reunification by the necessary actors
charged with protecting a child, including judges, law enforcement, child
therapist and social workers only creates an environment that perpetuates further
abuse of the child.
The
creation of an International Judiciary
College And Training Center that can educate all actors dedicated to
protecting children from child abduction and assisting them post-reunification
would have far-reaching benefits.
In
addition, a judicial college could provide a window of understanding amongst
non-member states as to the benefits of participation in the Hague Conferences
and become a signatory of its various conventions. Understanding and
knowledge opens the possibility for non-member states to participate in various
conventions that they may have been hesitant to do previously.
The
benefits of world-wide participation would in fact create an underpinning of
global accountability on both social and economic matters covered by any of the
relevant Hague Conventions.
These
benefits would have far-reaching social benefits and economic advantages. For
example, it would be reasonable to expect that convention compliance will
increase due to increased understanding amongst the world’s judiciary. Economic
benefits would be staggering: for example, costs associated with international
child abduction would be dramatically reduced as cases are expedited at the
‘In-bound’ country level – saving both time and money for all parties involved.
We
strongly point out that if the international community fails to create an International
Judicial College, preferably under the auspices of the Permanent Bureau of
the Hague Conference on Private International Law that would become a central
education, research, and training center for the world’s judiciary, the 1980
Hague Child Abduction Convention is at risk of becoming an obsolete tool if
countries begin to subjectively sanction one-another for failures to return an
abducted child. The ramifications of countries issuing subjective
sanctions against one another can become a very real problem and threat to the
needs for increased diplomatic relations in our ever-increasing globally
connected world.
It is
critical that we point out that during international parental child abduction
the victimized child is not the only victim. The targeted parent is also a
tragic victim as they are often thrust into an unknown storm that has limited
navigation maps to guide them through. Adding to the challenges of a
left-behind parent is the reality that the key actors that they turn to for
help such as the courts and judges, law enforcement, and social workers and
child therapist often do not understand the complexity and severe dynamics of
abduction. Combining these issues is
that the legal system itself, if overseen by an inexperienced judge, can
exasperate abduction cases by not following the intent and spirit of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Prevention to
preside over legal proceedings in a fastidious manner.
Of
great concern is the reality that victimized left behind parents who
successfully reunite with their child but find themselves facing additional
schemes that utilize their child they are desperate to protect often lose hope
in the legal system they once turned to for help. When this type of
disenchantment occurs due to real failures by the actors who were responsible
to protect the child and the victimized parent the result is anarchy. Everyone
suffers. Everyone.
We
must protect our children from abuse. In order to do so we must create an International
Judiciary College And Training
Center.
