Rhona Schuz: In search of a settled interpretation of Article 12(2) of the Hague Child Abduction Convention

Rhona Schuz is Senior lecturer and joint director of the Centre for the Rights of the Child and the Family at the Shaarei Mishpat Law College in Israel and a visiting lecturer in the Law Faculty of Bar-Ilan University (and formerly a lecturer in law at the London School of Economics).

One of the exceptions to mandatory return of an abducted child under the Hague Convention on the Civil of Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980 is that the proceedings are commenced after the expiration of the period of 12 months from the wrongful removal or retention and that the child is now settled in its environment (provided for in Art 12(2) of the Convention). This article discusses critically the Court of Appeal decision in the case of Cannon v Cannon in relation to the interpretation of the concept of settlement in this exception and the scope of the discretion conferred by the provision. It is argued that courts should take a more child-centred approach in construing and applying the Convention in general and this provision in particular. In a postscript the article analyses the later House of Lords decision...

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