What is the Hague Conference on Private International Law?
The opening up of national borders, ease of travel, worker mobility and the greater availability of personal and commercial opportunities abroad have, along with their many benefits, presented new challenges for arranging personal affairs and doing business in cross-border settings. For more than a century, the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), an intergovernmental organization based in The Hague, the Netherlands, has been creating innovative workable solutions to these challenges. It develops international legal and administrative co-operation frameworks that provide a high degree of legal certainty and security for individuals and companies whose lives and activities transcend the boundaries between different legal systems.
What projects are among the HCCH’s work?
The HCCH develops and services multilateral legal instruments that respond to global needs. With member and non-member states adopting these legal instruments, the HCCH has a reach of more than 150 countries around the globe. These legal instruments address some of the most crucial issues, such as personal and family or commercial situations. As part of the HCCH’s service of over 45 international treaties, the staff of the HCCH’s Permanent Bureau in the Netherlands provides constant education, outreach, and work product directed by its Members. While the HCCH organizes meetings of Member States and other stakeholders to ensure the successful operation of its many treaties, it also provides information and educational support to countries, governments, judges, and others. Some of the projects that are in most need of support include:
- Supporting HCCH’s legal interns with a stipend for living expenses
- Supporting the International Child Abduction case law database (INCADAT)
- Developing electronic country profiles for several treaties to provide valuable information on a country’s resources and the treaty’s function within the country
- Judicial cooperation and assistance
- Publication of handbooks and guides to provide for consistent interpretation and information globally on the various treaties
- Translating publications to other languages to make them available globally
- Supporting supplementary research by the HCCH’s staff on topics of interest to Member States
- Statistical research, particularly for the Hague Maintenance Convention that works to provide uniformity and consistency in securing and enforcing child support obligations.
Learn more about the HCCH at its website at www.hcch.net.