Samenvatting

In family law practice we are dealing increasingly with international aspects of broken relationships. Once children are involved, severe questions of habitual residence occur when one of the parties decides to return to his or her land of origin.Over the past years the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention has been criticised in the Netherlands, mostly because of the duration of such proceedings.In the Netherlands a change in legislation is now almost a fact, introducing a set of measures one of which is offering parents a Cross Border Mediation.This summer, The Hague Conference will come off with a ‘Guide of good practice’, to introduce Cross Border Mediation in international child abduction cases. The Netherlands stand out in having a Cross Borer Mediation system already integrated into their legal practice, soon to be legal system. So far the results have been evaluated positively in such a way that Cross Border Mediation should be considered as a useful tool in preventing abduction cases as well as in regular relocation cases.