IFLG and Prof. Teitz on the 1996 Hague Convention

The International Family Law Group hosted an address by Prof Louise Teitz, the First Secretary of the Hague Conference speech  on the 1996 Hague Convention and an update on the work of the Conference. David Hodson and Denise Carter welcomed Prof Teitz and she proceeded to give a frank and informative update to the work of the Conference. The USA is in process of implementing the Convention and measures are going through the Senate and Congress to amend the UCCJEA. Other countries also considering implementation include New Zealand and Canada and Turkey is considering signing the  1996 Convention. The Hague Conference is working hard to extend its reach into South America and Asia.  Prof Teitz remined practitioners of INCADAT the case database maintained by the Conference. The Good Practice Guide is currently in draft and the final version should be published in Spring 2013. Prof Teitz commended the English Central Authority the ICACU as an exemplary Central Authority. She also noted that  the Convention promotes the adoption of mediated or agreed settlements not just the use of legal redress. Amongst the other work of the Conference is the 2007 Maintenance Convention which enters into force in Jan 2013. It has limited coverage now but the USA has signed and it is going through Congress. The Conference is working on an initiative to create a mentor system between central authorities of existing & new members. The ECtHR decision in X-v-Latvia  from the Grand Chamber not available yet. The Conference was unable to file an intervention as the Council (the governing body of the Conference) had raised issues with the Conference having filed an Interveners brief in the Abbott case in the US Supreme Court. A Working Group to publish a Good Practice guide on Art 13b is being established. The group will meet in June 2013. An Experts working group is looking at cross border recognition and enforcement of mediated multiple issue agreements. The Malta process involving Sharia based countries has issued protocols but there has not been concrete progress. A Mediation sub-group of 6 members & 6 non members is at work and a sub-group has resulted in contact points between some countries to work in a way analogous to CA'srying to promote contact points within Embassies to include providing Skype to facilitate contact. The guide to good practice is being translated into all official EU languages and Arabic by  the EU  There is also ongoing work on cross border recognition of civil protective measures, on surrogacy and research on relocation which is trying to build consensus that relocation should receive more attention by experts working group. Building such a consensus is hard. During a lively question and answer session Prof Nigel Lowe  gave some feedback on his most recent research which has found substantial increase in abduction cases and  increasing delay. Carolynn Usher thanked Prof Teitz and echoed the thoughts of all - how do they do so much on a budget of 3million euros?