International Hague Network of Judges: Significance in Implementation of the 1980 and 1996 Hague Conventions on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Convention”) provides for the prompt return to the country of habitual residence of children taken by a parent from one country to another. It was created to address the threshold problem in such cases, that is, which court should determine the rights of the parties involved. In a case under the Convention, the court's concern is which country is the country of habitual residence and practical aspects of the return to ensure the safety of the child and the taking parent. This article will discuss the formation of the International Hague Network of Judges (IHNJ), why it is crucial in the advancement of the Convention's goals, and, specifically, what it does to educate judges and facilitate communication between judges, and how the IHNJ can facilitate the return, including providing information on services, procedures, and protections offered in the countries of return.     

Education Counts: Turning Crisis Into Opportunity for Adolescents

This essay, adapted from the keynote address delivered at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ 72nd Annual Conference on July 13, 2009, in Chicago, Illinois, focuses on adolescents and education—a strategy that is not only economically sound but also logical, indeed honorable. So just how do we begin to turn the crisis facing too many children and families into opportunity? How do we interrupt, and reroute, that perilous pipeline to prison? How do we help to build off‐ramps from the disastrous destiny that awaits so many young people? How do we regain our leadership role in constructive juvenile justice instead of juvenile incarceration? I believe judges can take a leadership role in addressing these questions. It's our children's future to be sure, but it's ours too. Indeed, it's the very future of our nation that is at stake.     

Religion and the State: The Case of Faith–based Schools

It is always misleading, and sometimes dangerous, to suppose that the current problems represent no more than a recapitulation of earlier and intractable difficulties. An inhibiting sense of déjà vu numbs the mind and distracts attention from the essential novelty of deceptively familiar issues. The contemporary interaction of religion and politics in Western societies is as different from nineteenth–century contests between traditional faiths and their critics as it is distant from medieval versions of the church and state question. These truisms are well illustrated by the attempt made in this article to apply some of the harder lessons of historical and of cross–national studies to current debates on changing relations between organised religion and public education.     

Tolerance of the Intolerant?

In the first part of the essay, the author analyzes the difference and the relation between two different ideas of toleration, the passive and the active meaning. While the former is related to opportunistic and prudential purposes, the second is grounded in an ethical framework and presupposes the individual's freedom of conscience. This second meaning appears to be very important in a multicultural society: On its basis it is possible to develop toleration both as a plurality of contexts of choice and as a priority rule between conscience and culture in Rawlsian terms. In the second part, starting from the case of O. Preminger Institut v. Austria , the author examines the relation between this idea of toleration and freedom of speech.