Promoting Voluntary Agreements in International Child Abduction Disputes: The Case of Brazil

The objective of this article is to discuss and analyse the practice of Brazil in complying with the obligations imposed by articles 7 and 21 of the Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, in the light of the new recommendations of the Hague Conference regarding the use of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. This work first presents an overview of this Hague treaty, explaining its mechanisms and objectives and briefly discussing some of the main problems regarding its implementation. It then analyses why and how the use of ADR in child abduction cases has been addressed by the Hague Conference and goes on to explain the implementation of the Convention in Brazil: main actors, procedures, and problems faced during the first 10 years of its application (2002-2012). Finally, it addresses the use of ADR in child abduction cases in Brazil, discussing its main advantages, disadvantages, limitations and conformity with the national legal framework and analysing the role of the Central Authority in promoting voluntary agreements. Based on statistics of the Brazilian Central Authority, which shows that a high number of international child abduction disputes are solved by agreements, either before or after adjudication, it is concluded that Brazil should invest on the improvement on the use of ADR in Hague cases.