FD25P00086 - [2025] EWHC 2190 (Fam)

Fecha: 20-Ago-2025

Policy of the 1980 Hague Convention

32.

The objects of the 1980 Hague Convention are expressed within its preambles and initial articles. The preamble declares that the signatory states are "Firmly convinced that the interests of children are of paramount importance in matters relating to their custody" and "Desiring to protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the State of their habitual residence, as well as to secure protection for rights of access." Article 1 states the objects of the Convention, which are as follows:

to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State; and

ii)

to ensure that rights of custody and of access under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.

33.

One of the ways in which the Convention is intended to secure its objectives is by deterring would-be abductors from wrongfully removing or retaining children.

34.

In Re D (a child) (abduction: rights of custody) [2006] UKHL 51, [2007] 1 AC 619, [2007] 1 All ER 783, [2007] 1 FLR 961, Baroness Hale described the operation of the 1980 Hague Convention at para 48 of her speech, as follows:

"The whole object of the Convention is to secure the swift return of children wrongfully removed from their home country, not only so that they can return to the place which is properly their "home", but also so that any dispute about where they should live in the future can be decided in the courts of their home country, according to the laws of their home country and in accordance with the evidence which will mostly be there rather than in the country to which they have been removed…"