International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple residing in one country becomes the legal and permanent parent(s) of a child who is a national of another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country whose nationality the child holds.
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) is an intergovernmental organisation in the area of private international law, that administers several international conventions, protocols and soft law instruments.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted by a parent from one member country to another. The convention was drafted to ensure the prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not their country of habitual residence.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children is a protocol to the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. It is one of the three Palermo protocols, the others being the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms.
Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and/or receipt" kidnapping of a child for the purpose of slavery, forced labour and exploitation. This definition is substantially wider than the same document's definition of "trafficking in persons". Children may also be trafficked for the purpose of adoption.
David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G. Davis Chair in Constitutional Law, director for The Center for Children, Law, and Ethics, former director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, and faculty advisor for the Law, Science and Technology Society.
The Hague Convention on parental responsibility and protection of children, or Hague Convention 1996, officially Convention of 19 October 1996 on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children or Hague Convention 1996 is a convention of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It covers civil measures of protection concerning children, ranging from orders concerning parental responsibility and contact to public measures of protection or care, and from matters of representation to the protection of children's property. It is therefore much broader in scope than two earlier conventions of the HCCH on the subject.
The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was established on June 24, 1996 by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. The CCAA is responsible for the welfare of children in the care of Child Welfare Institutes (orphanages), domestic adoption, and international adoption.
Child laundering is a scheme whereby intercountry adoptions are effected by illegal and fraudulent means. It may involve the trafficking of children and the acquisition of children through payment, deceit and/or force. The children may then be held in sham orphanages while formal international adoption processes are used to send the children to adoptive parents in another country.
International matrimonial law is an area of private international law. The area specifically deals with relations between spouses and former spouses on issues of marriage, divorce and child custody. In the last 50 years, the States Members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law have attempted to harmonize domestic matrimonial laws and judicial rulings across international borders in these areas.
The term international child abduction is generally synonymous with international parental kidnapping,child snatching, and child stealing. However, the more precise legal usage of international child abduction originates in private international law and refers to the illegal removal of children from their home by an acquaintance or family member to a foreign country. In this context, "illegal" is normally taken to mean "in breach of custodial rights" and "home" is defined as the child's habitual residence. As implied by the "breach of custodial rights," the phenomenon of international child abduction generally involves an illegal removal that creates a jurisdictional conflict of laws whereby multiple authorities and jurisdictions could conceivably arrive at seemingly reasonable and conflicting custodial decisions with geographically limited application. Such a result often strongly affects a child's access and connection to half their family and may cause the loss of their former language, culture, name and nationality, it violates numerous children's rights, and can cause severe psychological and emotional trauma to the child and family left behind.
International child abduction in Brazil comprises cases in which the removal of a child by one of the joint holders of custody or non-custodial or contested parents to Brazil in contravention of other laws of other countries and/or the desires of other custody claimants. The phenomenon of international child abduction is defined in international law and legislated on by the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which entered into force in Brazil on January 1, 2000 and aims to trace abducted children, secure their prompt return to the country of habitual residence and organize or secure effective rights of access. In 2010 Brazil was accused by the US State Department of being non-compliant with the Hague Convention.
The Office of Children's Issues is an agency of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which in turn is part of the U.S. Department of State. The Office of Children's Issues was created in 1994 under the leadership of Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan and that of her successor Maura Harty. The Office of Children's Issues is divided into three units — a Prevention unit, which seeks to prevent international child abductions; an Abduction unit, which responds to abductions seeks to facilitate a return of abducted children; and an Adoption unit.
As a result of its high level of immigration and emigration and its status as common source and destination for a large amount of international travel the United States has more incoming and outgoing international child abductions per year than any other country. To address this issue the United States played an active role in the drafting of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction Although the United States was one of the first nations to sign the Convention in 1981 the Convention did not enter into force for the US until 1988 with the enactment by Congress of the International Child Abduction Remedies Act which translated the Convention into US law.
The Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, also referred to as the Hague Maintenance Convention or the Hague Child Support Convention is a multilateral treaty governing the enforcement of judicial decisions regarding child support extraterritorially. It is one of a number of conventions in the area of private international law of the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 2007. The convention is open to all states as well as to Regional Economic Integration Organizations as long as they are composed of sovereign states only and have sovereignty in the content of the convention. The convention entered into force on 1 January 2013 between Norway and Albania, with Bosnia-Herzegovina (2013), Ukraine (2013), the European Union, Montenegro (2017), United States (2017), Turkey (2017), Kazakhstan (2017), Brazil (2017), Honduras (2017), Belarus (2018), Guyana (2020), Nicaragua (2020), United Kingdom (2021), Serbia (2021), New Zealand (2021), Ecuador (2022), Botswana (2022) and Azerbaijan (2023) following suit. Because the EU acceptance of the convention applies in 27 EU countries, the convention applies in 45 countries worldwide.
The Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors is a treaty of the Organization of American States (OAS) that was adopted at Mexico City, Mexico, on March 19, 1994, at the Fifth Inter-American Specialized Conference On Private International Law.
The Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act is a US bill that would address federal adoption incentives and would amend the Social Security Act (SSA) to require the state plan for foster care and adoption assistance to demonstrate that the state agency has developed policies and procedures with respect to the children it is working, and which are (possibly) a victim of sex trafficking or a severe form of trafficking in persons. The bill furthermore requires states to implement the 2008 UIFSA version, which is required so the 2007 Hague Maintenance Convention can be ratified by the US.
Surrogacy is legal in New Zealand if it is performed altruistically, where the surrogate donates her services selflessly, without any compensation beyond the coverage of expenses. Commercial surrogacy, where the surrogate is paid in addition to the coverage of expenses, is not legal. There is a lack of specific legislation and regulations dealing with surrogacy, though the recent increase in surrogacy cases has led to a number of amendments. New Zealand is party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and ratified it in April 1993. The primary principle of this Convention is that the best interests of the child are paramount, which must then encompass all surrogacy agreements and regulations. The lack of clear surrogacy legislation in New Zealand has led to many couples engaging in reproductive tourism in order to ensure the surrogacy is successful. This has the potential to significantly impact the human rights of all of the parties involved.
