Jeremy
D. Morley
The U.S. State
Department has just issued its 2016 Annual Report on International Parental
Child Abduction under the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction
Prevention and Return Act.
The Report cites 21
countries that either demonstrated a pattern of noncompliance as defined in the
Act or otherwise failed to comply with any of their obligations under the
Convention.
The Report identifies
11 countries that, although they are
parties to the Hague Convention and are partners with the United States with
respect to the Convention, have “demonstrated a pattern of noncompliance” with
the Convention in 2015. These countries are Argentina, The Bahamas, Brazil,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru,
and Romania.
The Report also lists
two countries as countries that failed to comply with one or more of their
obligations under the Convention with respect to the resolution of abduction or
access cases. These countries are Austria and Japan.
Finally, the Report
lists 8 countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention but nevertheless “demonstrated a pattern of noncompliance” in 2015. These
countries are Egypt, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, and
Tunisia.
It is extremely
important to note that the failure of the State Department to identify a
country as noncompliant with the Convention does not mean that the country is indeed
compliant or that the legal or administrative authorities in such a country
will return abducted children promptly to the United States.
Follow this link to view the full report:https://travel.state.gov/content/childabduction/en/legal/compliance.html