The Hague Convention: an Overview

Hague is one of the cities based in The Netherlands wherein the international court is based. During the eighties, UNICEF felt that international adoption is turning out to be a complex and contagious legal and human problem, while the current international and domestic legal instruments pointed the requirement of the multilateral perspective. Hence the international group started working over the convention in 1989. After having a discussion on length about the same, it finally approved by the United States in 1993. Thus the Hague Service Convention proved out to be instrumental in formulating an effective law for international adoption, which became simple, thanks to this initiative, which, however, was implemented in April 2008.

If you look at the idea of adoption between two different nations that are ratified and executing the mandates of the said convention then they are supposed to stick to the convention in accord with certain laws of the respective nations. An important benefit of the convention nation is that it may not alter the procedure of adoption at will like the non-convention country. For this very aspect alone, many people appreciated the idea of adoption it sets for people. Thus this convention doesn’t really stop the idea of adoption among the 86 convention nations and the non convention nations. The non convention nations like Russia, Ethiopia, Ukraine and South Korea, which simply accounted for 44 percent of the 2010 adoptions. The Convention country like China is simply accounted for 31 percent of the adoption. These five nations were seen sending out the 75 percent of the kids in the year 2010.

The convention simply needs the creation of the central adoption authority in each and every convention country. For the United States, the Children's Issues Office based in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the United States Department, which is managed by the Ambassador Susan Jacobs. The Convention countries including Cambodia and Guatemala are among the unique nations in terms of the United States. Both the nations were able to convince the central authority, which they seem to have implemented the mandates of the convention. For this particular reason, the adoptions will not occur between other nations and the United States.

The Hague Convention Process

The US prospective parents file the I-800A with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The parents involved in the adoption process simply include the items as per enlisted in the Article 15. When the parents adhere to the standards of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services then the application is simply forwarded to the central authority in the nation wherein the adoption is taken place. When any child becomes the eligibility for international adoption in sending the same in country, the Central Authority of the nation simply chalks out the report over the child as per the Article 16 and thus forwards the report to the US. With the adoption agency, the prospective parents simply accept the referral of the kid as per the Article 17.

My name is Sohel Ather, software engineer by profession and a content writer by passion, Technical writings, blogging etc are stuff that I do as hobby.