The convention is the final legislative step designed to impede and deter parents from resolving family disputes concerning the care, custody, and control of minor children by means of self-help, in violation and indifference to customary legal or nonadversarial methods of dispute resolution, usually accomplished by fleeing to a distant State or country. Between member countries, the convention's principal objective is to effect the prompt return of an abducted or wrongfully retained child to its country of habitual residence. The system operates through a central authority required to be designated in each contracting State. This agency receives from and transmits to other central authorities petitions by their respective residents for the return of a child. It also attempts to locate and monitor the welfare of a child alleged to have been abducted or wrongfully retained in its country. The U.S. central authority is the Office of Citizens Consular Services in the State Department. This book reviews the history of the convention and relevant legislative history in the United States. It provides the text of the convention, analyses of implementing U.S. legislation, and regulations issued by the State Department's central authority. Model forms are supplied.