Sandra Davis' Week: International relocation and child abduction: two sides of a different coin?

This week in E (Children) UKSC 2011/0084 the Supreme Court heard argument about the correct approach to the Article 13(b) exception to the duty to return under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Article 13(b) provides that the requested State (to which a child has been abducted) is not bound to order a child's return to the country from which he was abducted if it can be established that "there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation."

One of the many questions the Supreme Court has to determine is whether various previous decisions of the lower courts regarding the Article 13(b) exception have added an impermissible gloss to it. If so goes the argument the exception has been incorrectly elevated to such an extent that the threshold is almost impossible to cross. The contrary argument is that the...

Read the full article here.