Aktuelle Entwicklungen im Familienrecht

Scheidung, Sorgerecht, Umgang und Unterhalt sowie internationale Kindesentführung

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the considerable media criticism regarding the implementation of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction, to which Japan acceded in 2014. The Japanese judiciary has been accused of not enforcing the return of children abducted and taken to Japan by Japanese caretaker parents in accordance with the Convention.

In this paper, after a brief overview of the Japanese family court system and the law on marriage, the author details the main features of the current legal rules in Japan governing divorce and matters ancillary to divorce. The focus is on child custody and visitation rights. The great importance of amicable, out-of-court divorce and conciliation proceedings is discussed; only relatively few divorces and child-related cases go to court. In child-related cases, the role of the family court investigator is significant, as Japanese law does not provide for a guardian ad litem for the children and an expert report is not obtained.

It is further shown that the Convention’s basic idea of maintaining a child’s contact with both parents even after separation does not correspond to Japanese family law. Many children in Japan lose contact with the non-care-providing parent after their parents’ divorce. However, the steadily increasing number of access proceedings shows that many non-care-providing parents do not want to accept a severance of their relationship with the child. Against this background, the implementation of the Child Abduction Convention in Japan is presented and evaluated.