The HCCH Eighth Special Commission

Between 10 and 17 October 2023, the HCCH convened the eight special commission on the Practical Operation of the 1980 and 1996 Hague Conventions. Special Commission meetings in relation to those two instruments are held roughly every 6 years. The Conclusions and Recommendations of each previous special commission (and, since they have been made generally available, the preparatory documents for them) are available on the HCCH website here.

The preparation for the eight special commission was extensive. Many hundreds of pages of preparatory documents were prepared and collated by the HCCH. They are all now available here.

Following seven days of discussion and debate, the special commission approved a number of Conclusions and Recommendations. Those C&R’s, which are prepared by the drafting committee and then agreed at the conclusion of the meeting, are contained within this document.

Together with Richard Min of Green Kaimer Min & Rockmore LLP in New York and Fabiana Quaini, I was fortunate enough to attend the Special Commission on behalf of the IAFL. We prepared a full observers report which is publicly available through the IAFL website here.