Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Civil Protection Orders

Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Civil Protection Orders

 

Summary of work carried out between 2011 and 2018

In April 2011 the Council on General Affairs and Policy of HCCH on Private International Law (the “Council”) added to the agenda of the Conference “the topic of the recognition of foreign civil protection orders made, for example, in the context of domestic violence cases” (C&R No 3 of CGAP 2011).

The Sixth Meeting of the Special Commission on the practical operation of the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Child Protection Convention (Part I, 1-10 June 2011) welcomed the addition of this topic to the HCCH agenda and recommended that “account should be taken of the possible use of such orders in the context of the 1980 Convention” (C&R No 43 of the 2011 SC).

The Permanent Bureau presented to the Council in April 2012 Preliminary Document No 7, “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Civil Protection Orders: A Preliminary Note”3 in fulfilment of the previous year’s mandate.

Upon request of the 2012 Council, a Questionnaire was circulated to Members of HCCH in November of 2012. Preliminary Document No 4 B of March 2013, “Questionnaire on the recognition and enforcement of foreign civil protection orders: Summary of Member responses and possible ways forward,” was subsequently presented to the 2013 Council.

In April 2013 the Council “welcomed the work carried out by the Permanent Bureau and invited it to continue exploratory work, including further comparative research (such as a country profile) and investigation on the feasibility of a future instrument. The Permanent Bureau may, resources allowing, convene an Experts’ Group to assist in carrying out this work.”

In furtherance of this 2013 mandate, the Permanent Bureau developed a Draft Country Profile for this area of law, and convened an Experts’ Group on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Civil Protection Orders, which took place from 12 to 13 February 2014. A very positive report showing substantial progress was presented to the Council at its March 2014 meeting. The Conclusions and Recommendations of the Experts’ Group clearly called for the development of an instrument in this area. Council discussions revealed a desire from Members to obtain more statistics with a view to better assess the need to develop an instrument in this area.

Additional statistics collected from 28 responses to the 2014 Draft Country Profile and 85 responses to a Questionnaire distributed to NGOs located in 27 countries were shared with the Council at its 2015 meeting. A notable number of reported cases related to child abduction matters. The cases dealt with a variety of issues, ranging from domestic violence and harassment to stalking and forced marriage, as well as others. The statistics that were collected to assess the prevalence of relevant cases and the need for an instrument showed that a great majority of the practitioners and victim-services groups canvassed were handling cross-border cases on a regular basis.

In March 2016, the Permanent Bureau reported to Council that an analysis of the responses to the Questionnaire and 2014 Country Profile evidenced the existence of enough core commonalities between national protection order regimes for international work to be considered feasible.

In March 2017, the Permanent Bureau informed the Council that there had been a productive meeting with UNODC, which had agreed to co-operate with HCCH on the recognition and enforcement of protection orders.

On 12 June 2017, at a Meeting of Experts on Issues of Domestic / Family Violence and the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention co-organised by the University of Westminster and the HCCH, “[p]articipants welcomed continuing international work on protection orders, and recognised a need in practice, both in the operation of the 1980 Convention, and in a variety of other cross-border circumstances (e.g., domestic and family violence, stalking, general harassment, human trafficking, forced marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), etc.), for an international instrument addressing the recognition and enforcement of protection orders”.

At its Seventh Meeting (10-17 October 2017), the Special Commission on the practical operation of the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Child Protection Convention, recalling its Conclusion and Recommendation on this topic at the Sixth Meeting (No 43), welcomed “the report on preliminary work already undertaken as well as the continued exploration of further work on the recognition and enforcement of foreign protection orders at the international level”.

On 15 March 2018, the Council on General Affairs and Policy decided to remove from the Agenda of the HCCH the topic of recognition and enforcement of foreign civil protection orders, with the understanding that this issue may be revisited at a later stage.

Key documents