The European Union has recently become the fifth contracting party to sign up to the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention.
It will come into effect on the 1st August this year and will apply between, on the one hand, all Members of the European Union (with the exception of Denmark) and, on the other hand, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Norway and Ukraine. As a result, 31 States will be connected to the 2007 Convention.
The Convention is an important measure that helps to ensure the effective international recovery of child support and other forms of family maintenance. Its key features include:
- a broad-based system for the recognition and enforcement of maintenance decisions made in contracting states - combined with expedited procedures;
- a system of co-operation between the relevant authorities in each state to make the processing of international applications easier and more effective;
- the provision of virtually cost-free services for child support applications, including free legal assistance in all the contracting states if required; and
- an obligation to provide prompt and effective measures to enforce child support orders coming from other states.
Source: Hague Conference on Private International Law
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