file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgareth%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml - - Firstly, we are confronted in each case with the removal from its habitual environment of a child whose custody had been entrusted to and lawfully exercised by a natural or legal person. Naturally, a refusal to restore a child to its own environment after a stay abroad to which the person exercising the right of custody had consented must be put in the same category. In both cased the outcome is in fact the same: the child is taken out of the family and social environment in which its life has developed…

file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgareth%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml - Offprint from the Acts and Documents of the Fourteenth Session (1980), tome III, Child abduction

file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cgareth%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml - http://hcch.e-vision.nl/index_en.php?act=publications.details&pid=2779 - -

http://hcch.e-vision.nl/index_en.php?act=publications.details&pid=2779 - -

Yes yes, of course, but as I said, the convention differentiates between the two:

The objects of the present Convention are –
a) to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State;

That they are treated the same is obvious.

Brazil Helps Kidnap American Children

By http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=BERNARD+ARONSON&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND - BERNARD ARONSON

Nations distinguish themselves by gestures large and small. In the coming weeks, Brazil will define itself to the United States and to the wider international community by how it treats a 9-year-old boy.

Sean Goldman was born and raised in Red Bank, N.J., to an American father, David Goldman, and his Brazilian-born wife. Five years ago this week, Sean was taken by his mother to Brazil on what was supposed to be a two-week vacation. He never returned.

What should have happened next is clear, since Brazil is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Under the treaty, one parent cannot flee the legal jurisdiction where the child resides -- "his habitual residence" -- to shop for a more favorable court venue in another country to contest for custody. Within six weeks of Sean's abduction, Brazil was obligated under the treaty to return him to the U.S., where custody issues could have been resolved legally.

The U.S., as the treaty requires, has regularly returned abducted Brazilian children. But Brazil has never returned any of the 66 American children abducted from the U.S. to Brazil. The U.S. State Department has repeatedly cited Brazil for violating its treaty obligations. In Latin America, only Honduras boasts a worse record. More than 1,600 American children are caught in similar circumstances world-wide.

In the five years since Sean's abduction, his mother obtained a Brazilian divorce and remarried into a powerful local family of prominent lawyers. Though she died tragically in childbirth one year ago, her Brazilian family has used its connections to obstruct Sean's return to his biological father. The case is so egregious that both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised Sean Goldman's plight with their Brazilian counterparts when they met for the first time earlier this year.

A glimmer of hope emerged last month when a Brazilian federal judge ordered Sean's immediate return to his father, who had flown to Rio de Janeiro for the ruling. But the return order was stayed by a higher federal court judge, and the case remains mired in the country's seemingly endless judicial appeals process.

Resolutions calling on Brazil to return Sean at once passed both the House and Senate unanimously earlier this year. Frustrated by the continued delay, members of Congress have now introduced legislation to strip Brazil and other flagrant violators of the Hague Convention of their privileges under the Generalized System of Preferences, which reduces tariffs on exports from developing countries to the U.S.

To avert the coming train wreck in U.S.-Brazil relations, Brazil must demonstrate that it is a nation that honors its treaty obligations -- not a country that protects those who abduct American children. The choice it makes will resonate far beyond the Goldman family or the families of the other 65 abducted American children in Brazil.

As the fifth most populous country in the world, Brazil has emerged in recent years as an increasingly respected global leader in economics, energy, peace-keeping and arms control. Brazil is a member of the G-20, a potential host of the 2016 Olympics, and a likely candidate for an enlarged U.N. Security Council. But Brazil cannot expect to enjoy the privileges of international leadership -- or U.S. support for these aspirations -- if it continues to ignore its Hague Convention responsibilities and lawful claims of American families whose children have been abducted.

It's long past time to bring Sean Goldman home.

Mr. Aronson served as assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs from 1989-93.

From today's Wall Street Journal

"O advogado Ricardo Zamariola, que representa o americano David Goldman na disputa pela guarda do menino Sean Goldman, 9 anos, disse nesta quinta-feira que lamenta a determinação do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) para que o garoto permaneça no Brasil até que seja ouvido por um juiz de primeiro grau sobre sua vontade. Segundo ele, a defesa vai recorrer da decisão. David Goldman chegou ao Brasil esta manhã.

"Lamento pela decisão", disse Zamariola ao Terra. "Além disso, eu pedi para ter uma conversa com o ministro Marco Aurélio antes de que ele tomasse uma decisão, mas a resposta que recebi era de que ele não poderia me atender".

Na tarde desta quinta-feira, o ministro Marco Aurélio concedeu uma liminar protocolada pela avó paterna do garoto para que o menino fique com a família de sua mãe, no Rio de Janeiro, onde está desde 2004. "Vamos analisar qual é a melhor forma, mas certamente vamos recorrer ao STF", disse o advogado.

O caso
O pai biológico de Sean, David Goldman, luta para ter a guarda do filho desde a morte de sua ex-companheira, a brasileira Bruna Bianchi Carneiro. A briga pela guarda comelou em 2004, quando Bruna deixou Goldman para uma suposta viagem de férias de duas semanas com o filho ao Brasil. Eles viviam na cidade de Titon Falls, Estado de New Jersey (EUA). Ao desembarcar no País, contudo, Bruna telefonou ao marido avisando que o casamento estava acabado e que não voltaria aos Estados Unidos.

A partir disso, foi travada uma batalha judicial pela guarda do garoto, na época com 4 anos. No Brasil, a Justiça reconheceu o divórcio pedido por Bruna sem a concordância de Goldman. Diante das leis americanas, contudo, eles permaneciam casados. Livre do compromisso com Goldman, Bruna se casou novamente com o advogado João Paulo Lins e Silva, mas no parto do segundo filho ela morreu.

Diante da ausência da mulher, David Goldman veio ao Brasil na tentativa de levar o filho de volta aos Estados Unidos. Desde então, ele briga pela guarda do garoto nos tribunais brasileiros, contra o padrasto de Sean e seus avós maternos."

By the time this case comes to an end the child will be in his twenties.  This just reflects how bad the justice system is here...

Bush was an idiot, but there is no support to arrest a US president and have a war trial.  Besides, US presidents, for the most part, have immunity and/or a sitting president would surely give them a pardon before the trial even started.

As a wise man told me long ago....you can't out ugly the ugly.

I don't know why I try to make sense of some things.

I was talking about this with my bird today. I think that puta is an absolute disgrace and I am very happy she died "giving light" to a new child. She brings misery to everyone she touches.

Sean and David have been in Orlando since they got back to the US.  They he has relatives there and spent a lot of time at Disney...that is where they went before he was kidnapped.