A Hague Convention for Child Support

fsBy The Law Offices of Ronald H. Kauffman of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Child Support on Wednesday, September 21, 2016.

Enforcing child support overseas just got easier. President Obama just ratified the Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support.

The official statement by NSC Spokesperson Ned Price on The Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance.

I’ve written about child support issues before. My timesharing child support article is now cited as a resource in the Child Support Benchbook. The Benchbook helps judges and magistrates hone courtroom practice and decision-making, by keeping them informed by state-of-the-art science, best practices used nationwide, and knowledge.

While the United States has child support enforcement well in hand, the same has not been true in other countries. This Convention is intended to remedy non-support cases where the payer of support resides in a foreign country and fails to provide court-ordered child support.

The Convention’s purpose is to assist custodial parents in enforcement proceedings in their state courts for collection of financial support due from parents residing outside of the United States.

The Convention accomplishes this by:

a) establishing a comprehensive system of co-operation between the authorities of the Contracting States;

b) making available applications for the establishment of maintenance decisions;

c) providing for the recognition and enforcement of maintenance decisions; and

d) requiring effective measures for the prompt enforcement of maintenance decisions.

The Convention applies to:

a) obligations arising from a parent-child relationship towards a person under the age of 21 years;

b) enforcement of a decision for spousal support when the application is made with a claim within the scope of sub-paragraph a); and

c) spousal support.

A list of countries which have ratified the Convention is here.