PREVIEW: Legal experts to finalize global child support convention

Legal experts from about 100 countries are due to convene in The Hague on Monday for the final negotiations on an international convention aimed at assisting with the recovery of child support in cases where a spouse is living in another country. The Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, will help divorced parents to recover child support when their former spouse fails to make monthly money transfers after emigrating. The talks about the final text will begin on Monday and are due to end on November 23, when the new convention is to be signed during a festive ceremony in the Peace Palace. Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister, Maxime Verhagen, Justice Minister, Ernst Hirsch Ballin and representatives of a number of international non-governmental organisations will be present at the ceremony. Several countries, including the Netherlands, have public institutions that assist divorced parents to recover child support. But very often their power and authority are very limited while the process is long and only rarely successful. Often national institutions can only act properly if the parent who still in the country knows the location of the parent who emigrated, and if the institutions of this parent's new home country are willing to cooperate. The convention should ease this process. All states that ratify the convention, basically agree to assist citizens from other states who also ratified the convention, to recover child support. It is also expected to end the prevailing situation amid rising divorce numbers and globalization, where emigration has proven to be a highly effective means for parents unwilling to pay child support. In the best cases, the parent caring for the child or children - often the mother - can apply for a welfare stipend in the absence of child support. This, however, is not possible in all countries. The convention is the 38th convention to be drafted by the Hague Conference, a Netherlands based-organization with 68 members. The conference deals with all questions of international private law - the law that deals with all international civil affairs between people and private entities, such as businesses. Its 68 members determine which international legal problems they want to work on. However, once the negotiations and the drafting process have begun, the members invite all interested parties - states and organizations - to provide input for the development of the new convention. The Hague Conference, has drafted conventions on the adoption of children and child abduction, as well as conventions on the international recognition of contracts.