On 23 November 2007, at The Hague, the Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance was concluded at the Twenty-First Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. A single original in English and French is deposited in the archives of the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; a certified copy is sent through diplomatic channels to each Member of the Conference at the date of that Session and to each of the other States which participated in it. The depositary is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is not the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and not the 1956 New York Convention.

Article 1: effective international recovery, in particular by co-operation between authorities, applications for the establishment of decisions, recognition and enforcement, and prompt enforcement measures. Article 2: maintenance obligations arising from a parent-child relationship towards a person under 21; recognition and enforcement of spousal support when the application is made with such a claim; spousal support, except for Chapters II and III. A State may reserve application to persons under 18 and may declare an extension to other maintenance obligations arising from a family relationship, parentage, marriage or affinity, including vulnerable persons, creating obligations only between States whose declarations cover the same ground. The Convention applies to children regardless of the marital status of the parents.

Article 4: each Contracting State designates a Central Authority. Article 6: transmit and receive applications, help locate the debtor or creditor, obtain information on income and assets, encourage amicable solutions, facilitate ongoing enforcement, collection and transfer of payments, evidence and, where necessary, establishment of parentage. Article 8: each Central Authority bears its own costs and may not charge an applicant except for exceptional costs under Article 7, and then only with prior consent. Article 10 lists the applications available to a creditor and to a debtor. Article 15: free legal assistance for child support applications.

Article 20: a decision shall be recognised and enforced if, when proceedings were instituted, the respondent, the creditor or, on the terms of the text, the child was habitually resident in the State of origin, or if the respondent submitted to the jurisdiction. Article 22: refusal if recognition is manifestly incompatible with public policy, if the decision was obtained by procedural fraud, if proceedings are pending, if there is an incompatible decision, or if the respondent lacked proper notice. Article 28: there shall be no review of the merits.

Article 48: in relations between Contracting States, this Convention replaces the Hague Conventions of 1973 and 1958 in so far as their scope coincides. Article 49: it replaces the United Nations Convention of 20 June 1956. Article 58: open for signature by Members of the Conference and States which participated in the Session; accession after entry into force, subject to objection within 12 months. Article 60: it enters into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of three months after the second instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, on 1 January 2013. Article 59: a Regional Economic Integration Organisation may become a Party. Article 64: denunciation takes effect after 12 months.

It is not the Protocol of the same day on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations and not the 1996 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children.

Image: The Peace Palace at The Hague, seat of the Hague Conference on Private International Law; Malis, 14 August 2007; public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. Treaty text: Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, The Hague, 23 November 2007.