GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
When a child is taken to or kept in another country without the other parent’s consent, the governing framework is the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, implemented in the United States by ICARA, 22 U.S.C. §9001 et seq.
These cases move quickly and they are unlike any other custody matter.
Return and forum — not custody.
This is the single most important thing to understand. A Hague proceeding asks whether a child was wrongfully removed or retained and should be returned to the country of habitual residence so that that country’s courts can decide custody. It does not decide who is the better parent or what the long-term arrangement should be.
Parents frequently arrive expecting a custody trial and find something narrower and faster.
Where the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention — a factual question assessed on the totality of the circumstances rather than by a formula.
That the removal or retention breached rights of custody under the law of that country, and that those rights were actually being exercised.
Narrow, and deliberately so:
The grave-risk defence is the most litigated and the most frequently misunderstood. It is a high standard, and it concerns the risk of return itself rather than a comparison of the two parents.
Connecticut’s UCCJEA, C.G.S. Chapter 815p, works alongside the Convention. Section 46b-115v authorizes Connecticut courts to enforce Hague Convention return orders, and §46b-115jj governs enforcement of foreign custody determinations and of federal or sister-state return orders entered under the Convention.
Act immediately. The one-year period matters, evidence disperses, and a child becomes settled. There is also a Central Authority process that runs alongside, and in some situations criminal remedies.
There are genuine defences, and there are circumstances — including family violence — where return is contested seriously. The case is still about return rather than custody, and framing it as a custody dispute is how respondents lose them.
When parents live in different states, which court decides custody. Connecticut’s UCCJEA rules on home state, continuing jurisdiction, and enforcement.
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What joint custody actually means in Connecticut, how legal and physical custody differ, and why joint custody does not mean equal time.
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Connecticut custody attorney Daniel M. Morton on legal and physical custody, parenting plans, relocation, and how judges decide. Glastonbury office.
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Every case starts with a conversation about what you’re facing and what it would take to handle it.
