Cross Border Challenges in Family Law

There are various and complex legal issues which can arise for family law practitioners in matters involving cross-borderfamilies. The issues can be extreme, such as matters involving international child abduction, or involve less conflict, but arenonetheless issues to which family law lawyers must turn their minds. One of the most extreme cross-border issues is that involving international child abduction. This often involves an allegation that a child has been wrongfully removed to Ontario, or is being wrongfully retained in Ontario, by a parent. When this occurs, the first question the lawyer must answer is whether the country from where the child is alleged to have been abducted from is a signatory to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Hague Convention”).

If the country is a signatory to the Hague Convention, then the process which follows is governed by the Hague Convention(which is enshrined in Ontario law under s. 46 of the Children’s Law Reform Act (“CLRA”).1 If the country is not a signatory to the Hague Convention, then the matter falls under the CLRA....