The Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children was concluded at The Hague on 19 October 1996, at the Eighteenth Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The English and French texts are equally authentic, in a single copy deposited with the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the depositary is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It entered into force on 1 January 2002. It revises the Convention of 5 October 1961 concerning the protection of minors. It is not the 1980 Convention on child abduction and it is not the 1993 Convention on adoption.

Article 1 sets the objects: the State whose authorities have jurisdiction to take measures for the person or property of the child, the law they apply, the law of parental responsibility, the recognition and enforcement of the measures, and co-operation between authorities. Parental responsibility includes parental authority and any analogous relationship determining the rights, powers and responsibilities of parents, guardians or other legal representatives. The preamble makes the best interests of the child a primary consideration and takes account of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 5: jurisdiction belongs to the authorities of the State of the child’s habitual residence; on a change of residence it passes to the new State, subject to Article 7. Article 6 gives the same jurisdiction to the State on whose territory a refugee or internationally displaced child is present, or a child whose habitual residence cannot be established. Article 7: in a case of wrongful removal or retention, the authorities of the State of the former habitual residence keep jurisdiction until the persons with rights of custody have acquiesced, or until the one-year condition of settlement in the new environment is met, if no request for return is still pending. The clause fixes jurisdiction; it is not a return procedure.

Article 15: in exercising jurisdiction the authorities apply their own law and may exceptionally take into account the law of another State with which the situation has a substantial connection, if the protection of the person or property so requires. Article 16: the attribution or extinction of parental responsibility by operation of law, by agreement or by a unilateral act, without the intervention of an authority, is governed by the law of the habitual residence; responsibility which already exists subsists after a change of residence. Article 23: measures taken in one Contracting State are recognised by operation of law in the others, with limited grounds of refusal, among them lack of a jurisdictional ground, failure to hear the child or the holder of parental responsibility, except in a case of urgency, and manifest contradiction with public policy, taking into account the best interests of the child. Article 26: enforcement in another State is requested by a simple and rapid procedure of the requested State and may be refused only for the reasons in Article 23. There is no review of the merits.

Article 29: each State designates a Central Authority; federal States may designate more than one. Articles 30 and 31 require them to co-operate, to provide information on laws and protection services, and to be able to facilitate agreed solutions by mediation or conciliation. The chapter is not set out here as a method of search or transfer. Article 52: the Convention does not affect other instruments to which the States are Parties, unless they declare the contrary, and it leaves room for agreements among some of them for children habitually resident in their territories, without changing relations with the other Contracting States.

Article 54: communications to a Central Authority are in the original language, with a translation into an official language of the other State or, where that is not feasible, into French or English; a State may, by reservation, object to the use of one of those two languages, but not both. Article 55 permits a reservation on jurisdiction over property of the child situated in its territory and on non-recognition of a parental responsibility incompatible with its own measure concerning that property. Article 60: only those reservations, no later than ratification, acceptance, approval, accession or the territorial declaration; they may be withdrawn, with effect on the first day of the third calendar month.

Article 57: open for signature by the States which were Members of the Conference at the time of the Session; ratification, acceptance or approval is deposited with the Dutch ministry. Article 58: accession is open after entry into force and has effect only as regards States which do not object within six months. Article 61: entry into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of three months after the third instrument; the same interval, with the particularities of accession, for later States. Article 62: denunciation takes effect on the first day of the month following twelve months, or a longer period stated in the notification. The cover shows the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Conference, not the session hall.

Sources consulted: Hague Convention on Parental Responsibility and Protection of Children; official text, Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (HCCH 34).