Families Across Borders | law, policy, news and views
Additional Amicus Briefs in Abbott Case
According to the Supreme Court docket sheet for Abbott v. Abbott, three amicus curiae briefs were filed last week in support of the respondent, Jacquelyn Abbott, who is arguing that rights under a non-removal (or ne exeat) order should not be enforceable with a return order under the Child Abduction Convention. The new amicus briefs [...]
Multicultural Families in Korea
“Baby Boom of Mixed Children Tests South Korea,” a story by Martin Fackler in the New York Times, reports on the many births that have occurred in recent years to hundreds of thousands of married couples formed by Korean men and women from other countrieses in Asia. Fackler reports that these are known as multicultural families in Korea, and they [...]
Upcoming Conferences
“When Worlds Collide — Tensions in Family Law” Around the world, family law is presenting some of the most personally critical, intellectually challenging, and politically controversial issues for legal resolution. The North American Regional Meeting of the International Society of Family Law and the Midwest Family Law Consortium seeks papers exploring these cutting edge issues [...]
More on Child Migrants
Following up on the story I noted last week here, today’s New York Times has a piece by John F. Burns called “Apology Opens Wounds of British Migrant Program.” As the article points out, the 7,000 to 10,000 children sent to Australia over a twenty year period after World War II represent the last phase [...]
Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
November 20 marks the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As you probably already know, for many years the CRC has been in force for all member countries of the U.N. except Somalia and the United States. Here’s information on the CRC and the celebration from the U.N.; [...]
Polygamy in Siberia?
Here’s a news story by Mira Katbamna called “Half a good man is better than none at all” (published in The Guardian on Oct. 27) which reports on research by anthropologist Caroline Humphrey at Cambridge University. Humphrey discusses communities in Siberia and Mongolia where men and women advocate polygamy (or practice it informally) on demographic and economic [...]
Criminal Conviction in Abduction Case
In the latest development in a complex international custody dispute between an American father and Spanish mother, the mother was convicted by a jury last week on criminal charges of custodial interference under New Jersey law. Accounts of the trial are available here and here. The case involves a conflict in jurisdiction between the courts in Spain [...]
Resources: Immigration and Family Law
Here are several useful books, published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and available from their web site, on topics related to international family law: Dan H. Berger, ed., The International Adoption Sourcebook (2008). Charles Wheeler, ed., Immigration Law and the Family (2008). Victoria Nielsen and Kristina Wetz, Immigration Law and the Transgender Client (2008).
Child Support Update
This press release from the Hague Conference reports the conclusion of the Special Commission convened to consider measures to promote and implement the 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other forms of Family Maintenance. The Special Commission “endorsed a number of practical tools to assist implementation of the Convention, such as [...]
Wedding Customs
I enjoyed this piece by Choe Sang-Hun in the New York Times, called “Questioning a Korean Wedding Tradition,” which considers recent debate about the practice of making large cash gifts at the time of weddings and funerals. As a point of (loose) comparison, I recommend this story from the Times in July 2003 called “For [...]
