Eduardo Arce Gonzalez v. Rosa Teresa Gutierrez, Eduardo Arce Gonzalez v. Rosa Teresa Gutierrez

The advent of private international law has presented difficult problems of interpretation for federal courts. Here, in order to determine a question that would be, but for the crossing of international borders, a wholly domestic matter for another sovereign nation, we must elicit the meaning of treaty provisions agreed upon by several countries with both common law and civil law traditions.

In this case of first impression, we determine whether a ne exeat clause con-tamed in a foreign custody agreement constitutes “rights of custody” under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. We hold that it does not, and reverse the judgment of the district court. In doing so, we follow the approach taken by the Second Circuit in Croll v. Croll, 229 F.3d 133 (2d Cir.2000), the only other Circuit to have addressed this question.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is an international treaty among the United States and fifty other countries. Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction,…