Child Custody Jurisdiction in a Global Society

With the expansion of international trade and multinational companies, we are becoming a global society. More and more corporations have offices in different regions of the world and they routinely conduct business across national boundaries. As a result, our population is becoming increasingly transient. It is not uncommon for married couples to relocate to another country when one of the spouses has an opportunity to advance in his or her career, and as a result of people living and working in foreign countries, there are increasing amounts of cross-national marriages. When offspring are born of these marriages and then the marriage unravels, there is commonly a desire on the part of each parent to raise the children in their respective homeland. Although international custody disputes most frequently occur between citizens of two different countries, such custody disputes may in fact arise between parents who are citizens of the same country, albeit one of the parents is residing outside his/her country of citizenship. To illustrate such a situation, a hypothetical is extrapolated from a recent case filed in the Harris County, TX, district court.