The
Hague Convention is an international treaty designed to return abducted children to their
parents. Most of us thought that it worked pretty well. After all, the
Convention itself is fairly clear. It states that if a child is taken away from someone
with rights of custody, that child must be returned if this person applies
under the
Hague Convention within the first year of this child’s abduction. But, the story of
David Goldman and his son Sean changed this impression.
In June of 2004 Sean’s mother, and David’s wife, Bruna, took Sean
to Brazil on what was supposed to be a two week vacation. She never returned.
Ever since that day, David has been trying to bring Sean home. Unfortunately, the
Hague Convention did not help him for many years. After several years and many court appearances
in Brazil and the United States, David was not allowed to even see his
son, let alone bring him home. It took the involvement of the American
Congress, the American Senate, thousands of protestors and supporters
in the United States and Brazil, and even Barak Obama, for David to get
Sean back. Thankfully, Sean is now home with his father, over five years later.
This story came as a shock to many people all over the world. People who
knew about the
Hague Convention were particularly surprised to find out how ineffectual it can be. Many
family law lawyers see the Hague Convention as a kind of safe guard. When
clients ask if they should worry about their children going on vacation
out of the country with their other parent, lawyers often tell them that
if the country they are traveling to is a signatory of the
Hague, then they should be able to have the child returned.
Sure, there were always problems with the
Hague, such as when parents do not know where their children have been taken
and thus cannot apply to have their children returned. But cases like
the Goldman’s, where a child is taken from his parent to a country
that is supposed to abide by the
Hague Convention, where that parent has the money to attend court proceedings in this other
country, where that parent does everything he legally can to have his
child returned, yet is let down again and again, really open people’s
eyes to how ineffective the
Hague Convention can be.