By John Crouch, Va. State Bar Family Law News, Summer 2009
On April 16, we attended a very frank and informative meeting between the American Bar Association International Law Section’s Family Law Committee and the staff of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues, which administers the Hague Conventions [i.e., treaties] on international child abduction and international adoption. We toured the offices and got to watch the staff working on various kinds of abduction and abduction-prevention cases.
The Office’s Deputy Director, Kathleen Ruckman, announced two new resources for judges handling international child abduction cases: (1) A case-law database for judges only, run by the Hon. James Garbolino of New Jersey, at www.haguejudicialresources.org; and (2) an international network of judges with experience in such cases, who have volunteered to talk to judges who are not so familiar with them or who are facing a novel issue with the Convention. It is administered by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, www.hcch.net. Judges interested in either of these resources should contact Judge Garbolino at jimgarbolino@surewest.net. No one can use the case-law web site without getting a password from him.