International Law in Brief
UK Supreme Court Decides Meaning of “Right to Custody” in Hague Convention Case (May 15, 2014)
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By: Emily MacKenzie | May 22, 2014 - 2:39pm
On May 15, 2014, the UK Supreme Court (the Court) held in the case of In the Matter of K (A child) (Northern Ireland) that, under the terms of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the Convention) and the Brussels II Revised Regulation, K’s mother had been wrong to remove K from Lithuania because K’s grandparents enjoyed “rights of custody.” According to the press release, the Court held that the phrase “rights of custody” in Article 3 of the Convention should include informal, or “inchoate,” rights, “provided that the important distinction between rights of custody and rights of access was maintained.”