David Warren

International parental child abduction

Earlier this month, I took part in a joint meeting, with seven other Embassies in Japan (including the US, France, Italy, Canada and others) with the new Justice Minister, Ms Chiba.

We were urging the Japanese Government to ratify the Hague Convention on Child Abduction.   Japan is the only one of the G7 major developed countries that hasn't done this.   The Hague Convention puts in place a legal framework for cases where there is disagreement over the custody of children between parents who are nationals of different countries, and one parent takes the children to live in their country against the wishes of the other.  Britain has 37 such cases at present involving Japan, where custody is disputed.   Signature of the Hague Convention would at least mean that there was an agreed procedure for handling such cases - starting with the child being returned to their country of habitual residence, where the courts should determine what custody arrangments are in his or her best interest.

The Minister said that the new Government was considering the issue and that a decision would be made in due course.   There is increasing public discussion of this question here, particularly in light of a very high-profile recent American case; there have also been recent questions in the British Parliament.   I made the point in the meeting with the Minister that Japan, together with all the countries represented there, had signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  We do hope that the Japanese Government will conclude that Japan's isolation in this area should end sooner rather than later.   We are keen to work with Japan to help the experts here understand how the Hague Convention works in those countries that have signed it - and how it protects nationals of all the signatory countries when child custody disputes occur.

Posted at 16:17 26 October 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]