U.S.-Brazil Relations on International Child Abduction

1. The treaty relationship and the nature of a return application

The Convention entered into force between Brazil and the United States on 1 December 2003. The HCCH records the United States’ acceptance of Brazil’s accession on 29 September 2003. Bilateral treaty operation therefore began two decades before the 2023 diplomatic exchanges; those exchanges concerned implementation of an existing legal relationship rather than the creation of a new one. [1]

Its return mechanism concerns wrongful removal or retention within Article 3, assessed by reference to rights of custody under the law of the child’s habitual residence immediately before the relevant event and their actual exercise, or the exercise that would have occurred but for that event. Nationality alone does not determine the return obligation. The instrument applies to children within Article 4 and ceases to apply when the child reaches sixteen. [2]

A return decision does not determine the merits of custody, as Article 19 expressly provides. Nor does cooperation dispense with the Convention’s grounds for refusal. Those distinctions matter when evaluating diplomatic demands for expedition: reducing avoidable delay and properly examining a legally relevant defence are both elements of treaty implementation, rather than competing measures of national loyalty or institutional commitment. [2]

2. What the U.S. annual and action reports establish

The Annual Report on International Child Abduction and the subsequent Action Report are separate instruments under the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act of 2014. The former presents the reporting year’s caseload and the Secretary of State’s country determinations; the latter describes actions taken concerning countries identified as demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance. An account of those actions should not treat the Action Report as the underlying legislation or interchange the two publications. [3] [4] [5] [11]

Under 22 U.S.C. § 9111, the annual exercise concerns reported cases relating to children whose habitual residence is the United States, with distinct categories for cases, children, new applications, pending matters, resolutions and returns. The statutory concept of a pattern of noncompliance addresses persistent failure and includes criteria concerning unresolved cases and the performance of Central Authorities, adjudicative bodies and enforcement authorities. It is a determination made within the U.S. statutory reporting framework, rather than a judgment by an international court or a binding direction to a Brazilian judge. [3] [4] [10]

The 2023 Action Report records the assessment of Brazil’s performance during calendar year 2022. It states that 33 percent of Convention return requests remained unresolved for more than twelve months and that Brazil had been cited in the Annual Reports from 2006 through 2022. These are historical findings concerning the population covered by U.S. reporting. They neither measure every international abduction involving Brazil nor establish that every outstanding application should necessarily have resulted in return. [5]

The twelve-month reporting measure must also remain separate from the Convention’s own procedural rules. Article 11 addresses expedition and the right to seek reasons when a decision has not been reached within six weeks from the commencement of proceedings; Article 12 addresses a different one-year period in the return analysis. A U.S. reporting classification cannot replace either treaty provision or determine its application to a particular case. [2] [4] [5]

3. The documented bilateral exchanges of 2022 and 2023

At the twentieth annual U.S.–Brazil Consular and Migration Dialogue in August 2022, senior officials discussed Brazil’s implementation of the Convention. According to the Action Report, the U.S. delegation raised compliance and the importance of expeditious procedures with officials from Brazil’s foreign affairs and justice ministries. The record establishes the subject and level of engagement; it does not itself demonstrate that the discussions resolved the underlying judicial cases. [5]

In November 2022, the Consular Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Brasília met the Director of the Brazilian Central Authority, who had recently launched a public awareness campaign concerning the Convention’s benefits. This initiative belongs to the cooperation and information dimension of the relationship. Its existence should be distinguished from any empirically demonstrated effect on processing times or outcomes. [5]

U.S. officials also participated in a March 2023 conference attended by members of Brazil’s International Hague Network of Judges, foreign affairs and justice officials, and judicial and private-sector participants. Presentations addressed Central Authority responsibilities and implementation practices, with contributions from other participating countries and organisations. The Action Report additionally records a meeting with the newly appointed Director of the Brazilian Central Authority concerning support for that office’s role. [5]

The judicial contacts should be identified accurately. In March 2023, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Citizens Services and the Special Advisor for Children’s Issues discussed expedition with the Chief Justice of Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice. In April, the Embassy’s Consular Chief raised the issue with the Chief of Staff of the incoming Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court. These were distinct contacts with different institutions, not a single meeting or an undertaking by either court to determine pending litigation in a prescribed manner. [5]

The Department submitted its 2023 Annual Report to Congress in April; the Action Report records a spokesperson’s media note announcing that report in May. During May, the U.S. Mission’s Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs also delivered a diplomatic demarche to a senior Brazilian foreign ministry official, expressing concern about continuing noncompliance and judicial delays. Further exchanges addressed Central Authority staffing and processing concerns, including contact with the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. A demarche is a diplomatic representation; it is not a Brazilian return order or proof that a sanction was imposed. [5]

4. Brazil’s procedural response: Resolution CNJ No. 449/2022

The pertinent Brazilian instrument is Resolution No. 449 of the National Council of Justice, dated 30 March 2022, which establishes additional procedural directions for civil proceedings concerning the return of children under the Hague Convention. It is not an “Instrução Normativa 446/2022”. Published on 1 April 2022, with entry into force provided thirty days after publication, it preceded the 2023 diplomatic activity and cannot be described as a measure first adopted in response to that year’s report. [6]

The Resolution addresses such matters as initial judicial management, service, an attempt at mediation where viable, early consideration of evidence, the organisation of any necessary evidentiary hearing, provisional measures and implementation of a return order. Its opening provision preserves applicable substantive and procedural law. The instrument supplies procedural directions; it does not establish an automatic entitlement to a favourable judgment, abolish the respondent’s defence or turn the return proceedings into a determination of ultimate custody. [2] [6]

Judicial liaison and execution receive separate treatment. Article 26 provides for cooperation through liaison judges, while Article 20 addresses implementation with assistance from the Federal Attorney General’s Office and the Central Authority and with attention to the child’s safety and welfare. Where protective or enforcement measures are required, their legal basis, factual necessity and competent decision-maker must be assessed in the proceedings. Neither a bilateral meeting nor a general appeal for expedition supplies an individual judicial authorisation. [6]

Resolution No. 449/2022 is therefore an identifiable domestic response to procedural difficulties, and its subject matter is relevant to the concerns recorded in U.S. reporting. That relationship does not prove a causal sequence between a particular diplomatic initiative, adoption of the Resolution and a later change in outcomes. Evaluating implementation requires evidence about how proceedings were managed and orders enforced, rather than inference from the existence of the normative text alone. [5] [6] [7]

5. Results, reporting years and the limits of percentage claims

The original account’s assertion of a nearly eighteen-percent increase in child returns during 2023 cannot be sustained without an identified dataset, denominator and comparison period. The official report published in 2024 covers calendar year 2023 and provides a different, carefully defined set of figures: twenty-one reported return cases involving twenty-eight children, comprising thirteen cases already open at the start of the year and eight newly reported cases. These totals describe a caseload, not the number of new abductions throughout Brazil. [7]

Within that 2023 caseload, the report records four resolved cases involving five children and seventeen cases involving twenty-three children still open at year end. Separately, it states that two children returned to the United States from Brazil during the year. The nineteen-percent proportion of cases recorded as resolved is consequently not a physical-return rate: a case may be classified as resolved for reasons other than a child’s return. Cases and children also cannot be substituted for one another in a percentage calculation. [3] [7]

Subsequent reporting also prevents a historical claim of improvement from becoming an assertion of verified present compliance. The 2026 Annual Report, concerning calendar year 2025, continued to identify Brazil as demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance and discussed administrative processing, judicial delay and enforcement concerns. This is the Department of State’s assessment within its own reporting remit. It does not establish that every Brazilian authority acted improperly or that every pending application lacked a valid Convention defence. [8]

A defensible comparison must hold the unit and scope constant: publication year must be separated from the period measured; new cases from those carried forward; returns from other resolutions; and the U.S.-reported caseload from broader HCCH statistical studies. Changes in small annual totals, case composition or reporting practice cannot alone demonstrate that training, diplomatic pressure or a CNJ measure caused an improvement or deterioration. The available records support continued scrutiny and cooperation, with conclusions confined to what each source actually measures. [3] [7] [8]

6. Institutional responsibilities and the practical significance of cooperation

Article 7 of the Convention assigns Central Authorities cooperative functions that include locating children, preventing further harm, promoting voluntary return or amicable resolution, exchanging information and facilitating the institution of proceedings. In Brazil, the Federal Central Authority operates within the Ministry of Justice and Public Security’s international legal cooperation structure. Portaria MJSP No. 688/2024 regulates its administrative handling of incoming and outgoing applications, including conditional referral for judicial action. Administrative processing and judicial adjudication must remain distinguishable. [2] [9]

Diplomatic and consular officials can raise systemic difficulties, communicate concerns and support the channels available within their mandate. Those activities do not confer power to reverse a Brazilian court’s decision, adjudicate custody or guarantee removal of a child from Brazil. Conversely, access to the Convention’s judicial mechanism does not depend on a new bilateral dialogue: Article 29 preserves the ability to apply directly to competent judicial or administrative authorities, subject to the applicable procedural framework. [2] [5] [9]

For an individual matter, the value of the bilateral relationship lies in the capacity to make lawful channels function: transmission and examination of an application, reliable information, appropriate coordination, reasoned adjudication and safe implementation where return is ordered. At the systemic level, the documented exchanges identify areas requiring attention and provide a record against which later developments can be assessed. Neither function warrants a promise of success, a fixed completion date or a conclusion that cooperation has already eliminated the difficulties officially reported. [2] [5] [6] [8] [9]

Frequently asked questions

Official sources and legal authorities

1. HCCH — Acceptances of Brazil’s accession to the 1980 Child Abduction Convention. United States acceptance on 29 September 2003 and bilateral entry into force on 1 December 2003.
2. HCCH — Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, full text. Articles 3–5, 7, 11–13, 19 and 29; wrongfulness, scope, cooperation, expedition, return and custody.
3. Office of the Law Revision Counsel — 22 U.S.C. § 9111, Annual Report. Annual and preceding-calendar-year reporting, distinction between cases, children, resolutions and returns, and country determinations.
4. GovInfo — Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act of 2014, compilation. Sections 3(19), 101 and 202, corresponding to 22 U.S.C. §§ 9101(19), 9111 and 9122; noncompliance framework and report on specific actions.
5. U.S. Department of State — 2023 Action Report on International Child Abduction. Introduction and Brazil section, printed pages 5–7: calendar-year 2022 assessment and bilateral actions in 2022–2023.
6. National Council of Justice — Resolution No. 449 of 30 March 2022. Articles 1, 10, 14, 18, 20, 26 and 30: additional procedure, provisional measures, implementation and judicial cooperation.
7. U.S. Department of State — 2024 Annual Report on International Child Abduction. Methodology and complete Brazil section, printed pages 27–28: calendar-year 2023 caseload, cases resolved and children returned.
8. U.S. Department of State — 2026 Annual Report on International Child Abduction. Methodology and Brazil section: calendar-year 2025 assessment and continuing noncompliance designation.
9. Ministry of Justice and Public Security — Portaria MJSP No. 688 of 24 May 2024. Administrative processing by the Brazilian Federal Central Authority; Article 8 incoming applications and conditional judicial referral; Article 13 and access to court.
10. Office of the Law Revision Counsel — 22 U.S.C. § 9101(19). Current official definition of a pattern of noncompliance, read with the currency notice through Public Law 119-120 of 7 October 2026.
11. Office of the Law Revision Counsel — 22 U.S.C. § 9122. Current official statutory framework for actions and the separate report to Congress; paragraphs (a)–(c)(4) independently checked.