Implementing the Child Abduction Convention in Japan and the US

Date: Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Time: 8-9 PM ET

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About the event

The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, now in force in 103 countries, was adopted to prevent a parent from unlawfully removing or retaining a child across an international border. Joining the Convention and accepting its fundamental premises has been difficult for some Asian countries, including Japan. It has forced a shift in mindset about the respective custodial rights of parents in countries with different cultural and societal norms from many Western countries. Two leading experts on the Convention, Yuko Nishitani, professor of law at Kyoto University in Japan, and Linda Silberman, NYU professor of law, will discuss these and other challenges to the operation of the Convention in Japan and the United States as well as other recent global trends.

About the speakers

Yuko Nishitani is a professor of international private and business law at Kyoto University in Japan. She was a global professor at NYU School of Law in spring 2023, and also has been a visiting professor at Duke and in Zurich, Lausanne, Brescia, Louvain-la-Neuve, Tel Aviv, and Taiwan. Professor Nishitani is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She was a director of studies (English) and lecturer (French) at the Hague Academy of International Law and is its vice-president since May 2023. She served on several Legislative Committees in Japan and represented the Japanese government at the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

Linda Silberman is the Clarence D. Ashley professor of law emerita at NYU School of Law. Her scholarship covers a wide variety of domestic and transnational subject areas: conflict of laws, domestic and comparative procedure, transnational litigation (in particular judicial jurisdiction and judgments recognition), international arbitration, and international child abduction. She is a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law and has been a member of several US State Department delegations to the Hague Conference on Private International Law focusing on cross-border family law issues. In summer 2021, Professor Silberman delivered the Hague Academy General Course on Private International law.