News

The Ministry of Justice is moving to launch a study of the civil legal implications of signing the Hague Treaty governing international child custody disputes, paving the way for Japan to ratify the controversial agreement as early as next year.

The ministry, which will consider changes to Japanese laws that would be needed if the country were to sign the treaty, will submit inquiries this June to the Legislative Council advising the justice minister. Plans to sign the treaty are likely to be confirmed at a Cabinet meeting on May 20, signaling the ministry to begin drafting bills to implement the legal changes. If the process moves quickly, the bills could be in hand by the beginning of 2012, ready for submission to next year's regular Diet session.

However, a steep climb to ratification remains, with such details as what part of the government would host a central office for handling the diplomatic negotiations implicit in signing the treaty, and adjustment of the exact points of laws to be changed. Laws setting basic civil legal procedures will have to be drawn up, and the Legislative Council's input was apparently thought indispensable on the issue.

Signatories to the treaty -- officially titled the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and originally drafted in 1980 -- accept as a basic rule that children of a broken international marriage must be returned to their country of origin. In cases of physical or emotional abuse this rule may be voided.

In practice, however, obtaining a judgment against returning children to their home countries has proven extremely hard, and what constitutes grounds for such a judgment looks likely to prove the most contentious issue as Japan moves toward signing the treaty.