USA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Valentina Shaknes, Krauss Shaknes Tallentire & Messeri LLP
important today as they were 46 years ago. Victims of domestic violence also depend on the Conven - tion’s correct application, including when they seek the return of children wrongfully removed by abusive partners. The evidence presented in Fortaleza does not call for changes to the Convention’s structure, but for changes in how it is interpreted and applied: • careful, fact-sensitive attention to the dynamics of domestic violence, including coercive control; • consistent trauma-informed training for judges who apply the Convention; and • a willingness to let definitions and interpretive frameworks evolve in light of 46 years of practice and research, as the Convention’s own rapporteur now suggests they must. As Dr Barnett put it, what is needed is a “systemic and fundamental change in the understandings, percep - tions, attitudes and approaches of all those working to apply and implement the law”. That is a cultural shift in service of the Convention’s purpose.
The Convention touches thousands of children and families each year. Implementing these changes would directly recognise and honour its protective purpose. The distance between Sandton and Fortaleza has become its own data point: evidence of how diffi - cult this cultural and institutional shift remains. The next Forum, whenever it is held, will inherit both the evidence presented at Fortaleza and the unresolved question of which framework will guide the response – the openness of Sandton or the retrenchment of Fortaleza. Mr Bernasconi’s Sandton observation – that correct application, not the number of returns, is the true measure of the Convention’s success – remains the most useful sentence the HCCH has produced on this subject. Whether the institution is prepared to be held to that standard is the question this Forum left for the next.
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