The global effort to deter parental kidnapping: A history of the Hague Child Abduction Convention

The need for an international approach to parental abductions became evident after World War Two as the challenge of finding and returning abducted children were almost insurmountable in the international context. Left-behind parents often did not know how to get help as they were faced with the unfamiliar task of trying to obtain a return order from a foreign court. This chapter reviews the parallel projects developed in Europe, the US and Canada from the late 1960s to curb abduction. In 1976, the HCCH commenced the work that led to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction being adopted on 25 October 1980. The Convention entered into force in 1983 and marked a new era of global cooperation over issues relating to children. The chapter discusses the structure of the Convention, its post-ratification history, its progressive growth in membership globally, and its many other successes.