Hague Convention Cases

You will need an experienced lawyer for the mediation/trial procedure of the Hague Convention on cross-border parental child abduction.

Trial procedure

While I was working at Masayuki Honda International Law Office, I was lucky enough to have a wealth of experience in cases involving the Hague Convention on cross-border parental child abduction. 

These cases are highly-specialized, the outcomes have a lasting severe impact, and you will definitely need an experienced lawyer to handle the trial procedure of a Hague Convention case.

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 parentThe 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.