Hague Convention Cases

Execution procedure

Before Japan joined the convention, it developed a reputation as a haven for international parental child abduction by a Japanese parent and attempts to achieve the return of a child taken to Japan through the Japanese legal system tended to be unsuccessful.

Even after Japan joined the convention in 2014, Japan was listed as a noncompliant country by the U.S. Department of State in 2018 not due to a failure to appropriately order returns of children, but due to the lack of success rate of execution of ordered returns.

Japan was removed from the list in 2019 after the effort to revise Japanese laws to improve execution of ordered returns of abducted children, such as not requiring both parents be there when a child is taken from Japan to be returned to the left behind parent（The revised laws have only been in force since April 2020）.

Even if a taking parent is very stubborn or hiding somewhere with a child, there are now possible measures to enforce the return order successfully.