Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

A parental child abduction occurs when the non-custodial parent acts to wrongfully detain or abduct the child in violation of a court custody order.1 Patterns of child abduction indicate that the crime is committed as a way to maintain a full-time relationship with the child post-divorce or to rejuvenate a failed marriage through new lines of communication.' Whatever the reason, child-snatching "disrupts the orderly process whereby the control of children following a divorce is established. This self-help method of resolving custody disputes creates havoc for abducted children as well as suffering for the custodial parent. It frustrates the legal process designed to provide order and stabili t y . . . .."

Child abductions, in any form, can lead to psychological scars that may never heal. Children who are deprived of normal parental relationships can develop "later antisocial behavior [problems], such as delinquency, prostitution, and drug addiction" as well as "mistrust, low selfesteem, and chronic depression."' Since 1976, there have been over 2,700 international parental child abductions of American children' for which we must find an effective means of resolution.

The tragedy of parental child-stealing has spread year after year. With the ever-increasing ease of worldwide travel, this originally interstate problem has grown to international proportions.' International, as opposed to interstate, parental child abductions are frightening for both the abducted child and the custodial parent in that a child may be taken to a foreign country, thousands of miles away, in many instances without knowledge of the language or of how to contact the custodial parent. Many of these and similar problems were the focus of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.7 This Convention created more expeditious means by which a custodial parent could retrieve an abducted child from another land. Unfortunately, questions exist as to whether it has been wholly effective.

This Comment discusses the evolution of interstate promulgations effected in response to international efforts at ending parental child abductions. 8 There is discussion of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act of 1968 (UCCJA) and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1980 (PKPA),9 both of which set the stage for the Hague Convention of 1980. Next, the Convention itself and its implementing legislation, the International Child Abduction. Remedies Act are examined.' 0 Finally, the Comment will analyze recent cases in which courts have attempted to apply the Convention.

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