Policy considerations relevant to intercountry adoption reform

To protect the best interests of the children, the Hague Convention has required legislators to create new regulatory bureaucracies that, while necessary, tend by their very nature to result in systemic delays. Too often Convention countries fail to provide their adoption authorities with the resources necessary to fulfill these Hague-mandated obligations in a timely manner. The result in many countries is open-ended investigations that continue indefinitely while tens of thousands of adoptable children are relegated to state-run institutional systems. To counter this trend, the process of reform requires a candid assessment of whether a child’s interests are better served by an exhaustive and time-consuming regulatory process designed to preserve a child’s cultural identity, or a more expeditious process that will result in speedier placements into permanent families abroad. This is not to say that the Hague Convention itself is inherently flawed, or that third-party States or organizations have the right to second-guess a home country’s well-considered definitions of a child’s best interests. It is to say, however, that the balance so far seems to have been struck too far in favor of domestic placements, and that countries could better protect their children’s interests by viewing intercountry adoption as a viable and desirable alternative to prolonged institutionalization. The solution is to engage in a careful balancing test on a country-by-country basis, to assess realistically what investigative measures each country can reasonably undertake within an acceptable time period, and to provide whatever assistance may be necessary to ensure that an expedited intercountry adoption process remains consistent with the Hague mandate.