19 May 2011

Japan Finally to Sign Hague Convention

The BBC has reported that, at long last, Japan is going to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction later this year.

Japan's move is significant, not only because it is the last of the Group of Seven industrialized nations to sign the convention, but because Japanese family law favours single-parent families after separation and thus envisions a distribution of parental rights at odds with the convention's presumption of joint parental significance.