Are there laws regulating international child custody disputes?

Child snatching to gain jurisdictional advantage has become widespread, with parents taking children from their "country of habitual residence" to another nation, opening or re-opening litigation, and being awarded custody to the exclusion of the "left-behind parent." The dreadful harm resulting to children is recognized, and the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction has been adopted by the United States and many other countries. Congress implemented the Convention with the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA). The Convention has two stated objectives: "to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed or retained in any Contracting state; and to ensure that the rights of custody and access under the laws of one Contracting state are effectively respected in the other Contracting states." Its goal is the prompt return of the abducted child to the country of his or her "habitual residence" for custody adjudication. Under the ...  more