Families Across Borders | law, policy, news and views
Senate Approves Child Support Convention
In the late hours last night before adjourning for its pre-election break, the Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention. Responding to an objection by Senator Jim DeMint, the resolution of ratification was amended to incorporate an additional understanding, which reads: “The United States is not a [...]
House Resolution Calls on Japan to Address Child Abduction Cases
Before adjourning yesterday (until after the November elections), the House of Representatives approved House Resolution 1326, “Calling on the Government of Japan to address the urgent problem of abduction to and retention of United States citizen children in Japan, to work closely with the Government of the United States to return these children to their [...]
U.S. Military Personnel and International Custody Cases
According to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department are developing new procedures to assist servicemembers who face international child custody disputes. See Charlie Reed, Report: DOD to give more help to troops in international child custody disputes (Sept. 28, 2010). The piece links to this Report on International Intrafamilial [...]
Conferences
Several conferences this fall will address aspects of international and comparative family law: Information on the IV World Congress on Child and Adolescent Rights, to be held November 15-18 in San Juan, is available at www.childrightscongress.org; the call for papers and posters requires submission of an abstract by October 3, 2010. Previous Congresses were held in Venezuela [...]
Congress Watch: Pending Legislation
As the U.S. Congress approaches the end of its 111th Session, a number of international family law matters are pending. These include the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention, which was reported to the full Senate by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2010 with a recommendation that the Senate give its advice and consent to ratification. [...]
Proof of Foreign Law in U.S. Courts
Here’s an interesting post by Charles Kotuby on conflictoflaws.net on a recent opinion from the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals: Proving Foreign Law in U.S. Federal Court: Is the Use of Foreign Legal Experts “Bad Practice”?. The case is Bodum U.S.A., Inc. v. La Cafetiere, Inc. (opinion here) (available at 2010 WL 3432220), decided [...]
Marriage and Divorce in Tunisia
In this analysis of Marriage and Divorce in Tunisia – Women’s Rights, posted on the web site of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Massan d’Almeida discusses the Personal Status Code enacted in Tunisia in 1956, and notes two guidebooks on marriage and divorce published in Arabic and French by the Tunisian Women’s Association for Research [...]
