Guiding the law on international child abduction

Essential International Child Abduction Legal Guide

The Hague Child Abduction Convention 1980 was set up to help return children taken across international borders by a parent or relative without the consent of the custody holder(s).

By the late 1990s the Convention was in force in 51 States but no systematic analysis had been made of the best interpretation of the Convention.

However a book about the Treaty published in 1999 by the University’s Professor Paul Beaumont together with Peter McEleavy filled this gap and has become a must-have for international family experts.

It has been recognised as the leading treatise on the Convention by leading courts in Australia, Canada and the United States and has influenced the interpretation of the Convention by numerous judges in those countries and in Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK.

The Convention is now in force in 90 States and the book’s balanced interpretation of its provisions has helped the Convention to be more widely and sensitively used to resolve this pressing social problem.

It is gratifying that judges in many parts of the world have found help in construing the Hague Child Abduction Convention from the book that Peter McEleavy and I published.” Professor Paul Beaumont

The book also helped cement Professor Beaumont in his role as a consultant to the UK and Scottish Governments on private international law until 2013. He was also invited to give the prestigious Hague Academy lectures on international child abduction.

The book has been hailed for being of “first-class scholarship” and a “truly exemplary work”.

Find out more

• Professor Paul Beaumont's biography and publications
• Paul Beaumont and Peter McEleavy, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction (Oxford University Press, 1999)
• P Beaumont and L Walker, ‘Post Neulinger case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the Hague Child Abduction Convention’ in Permanent Bureau (eds) A Commitment to Private International Law – Essays in honour of Hans van Loon (2013, Intersentia) 17-30
• Lara Walker and Paul Beaumont, “Shifting the Balance Achieved by the Abduction Convention: The Contrasting Approaches of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice” (2011) 7 Journal of Private International Law 231-249
•  “The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice on the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction” (2009) Vol 335 Hague Academy Recueil des Cours 9-103
   
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