Hitomi Arimitsu v. James Edward Cook, II

The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“Convention”) requires that a Contracting State stay any child custody proceeding pending its determination on a Petition for Return of a Child. Per Article 16 of the Convention, the stay on the Contracting State’s custody jurisdiction is lifted if the child is not returned. The four children in this case went to Japan with Petitioner in July of 2014. In January 2016, Respondent obtained an initial Hague Order from the Osaka Family Court in Japan, ordering that the return the children to the state of Minnesota (“Original Hague Order”). The Osaka High Court issued a decision on February 17, 2017, which modified the Original Hague Order by ruling that the children did not need to be returned to the United States based upon Article 13 affirmative defenses (“Modified Hague Order”). In December 2017, the Supreme Court of Japan issued its decision confirming the Modified Hague Order and finding, specifically, that the children need not return (“Final Hague Order”). As a result of the Final Hague Order, the children were not returned, and child custody proceeding were commenced in Japan. Despite Japan’s resolution of the Hague petition, the Minnesota court disregarded Japan’s Final Hague Order, ignored Japan’s custody jurisdiction, and proceeded with its own simultaneous custody proceedings. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the Minnesota courts’ refusal to acknowledge the ultimate outcome of Convention proceedings by a Contracting State