Thank you! Naomi
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 15:20:15 -0400
>From: "Guggenheim, Martin" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: [AALSChildLaw] [Fwd: Support Child Rights & International Adoption - Sign On Now]
>To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>,"Association of American Law Schools' Section on Children and the Law" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Before anyone signs this, they should take a look at
> the attached article.
>
> Marty
>
>
>
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Odeana R. Neal
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:51 PM
> To: Section on Minority Groups;
> [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [AALSChildLaw] [Fwd: Support Child Rights &
> International Adoption - Sign On Now]
>
>
>
> I received this e-mail this morning. I'm not sure
> where the push for this is coming from right now,
> but I am at a minimum ambivalent about international
> adoption policies and at most view them as a kind of
> genocide. I wonder whether anyone is aware of
> advocacy groups that are coming out with
> counter-proposals.
>
> -- Odeana
> -------- Original Message --------
>
> Subject: Support Child Rights & International
> Adoption - Sign On Now
> Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 10:05:08 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Harvard Law Prof Bartholet
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Having trouble viewing this email? Click here
>
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>PLEASE JOIN US IN ENDORSING THIS
>
>INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION POLICY STATEMENT
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Dear Law Faculty Members and Child Rights Supporters:
>
>
>
>We write to urge you to join us in supporting the
>International Adoption Policy Statement reprinted below.
>We hope to obtain significant support for this Policy
>Statement from Faculty members in Law Schools and
>Universities in the U.S. and throughout the world
>specializing in Family, Child, Civil Rights and Human
>Rights Law, and from related legal professionals. We
>believe that such support will make a difference in the
>policy debate now surrounding International Adoption.
>
>
>
>As you may know, International Adoption is in crisis, with
>the numbers down significantly during each of the past
>four years, after steadily rising during the prior six
>decades. This is not because of any decline in unparented
>children; there continue to be many millions of children
>in desperate need of nurturing homes, most of whom are now
>growing up in terribly inadequate institutions or on the
>streets. Instead the reduction in International Adoption
>numbers is largely because of opposition by organizations
>and individuals alleging that they speak for the human
>rights of children. They call for restrictions on
>International Adoption that include temporary and
>permanent moratoria on such adoption, preferences for
>in-country foster and institutional care over
>out-of-country adoption, "holding periods" that require
>searching for in-country homes for months or years before
>out-of-country placement is permitted, and the elimination
>of the private adoption intermediaries that often serve as
>the lifeblood of International Adoption. They seek to
>severely limit International Adoption to last resort
>status. We believe that International Adoption generally
>serves the interests of children who cannot be raised by
>their birth parents better than non-adoption alternatives
>like foster and institutional care. We believe that
>International Adoption should be kept on the table as one
>of the options to serve the needs of unparented children
>worldwide.
>
>
>
>This International Adoption Policy Statement, along with
>its Supporting Report, has so far been endorsed by the
>Center for Adoption Policy, the Harvard Law School Child
>Advocacy Program, the National Council for Adoption, and
>the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. To see the
>six-page Supporting Report, click here. Competing views
>on the policy and legal issues are presented in treaties
>and authorities cited in that Report's footnotes 1-3. A
>related Recommendation on International Adoption has been
>adopted by the American Bar Association (ABA) House of
>Delegates. To compare, click here for ABA Recommendation.
>
>
>We urge you to join us in endorsing as individual Faculty
>members the International Policy Statement reprinted
>below. TO DO SO YOU NEED SIMPLY PROVIDE YOUR NAME AND
>AFFILIATION HERE. PLEASE DO THIS BY TUES, MAY 26. We
>hope to go public with the full list of endorsements
>shortly after that date. Click here to view the list of
>the endorsing organizations and individuals, which will be
>updated regularly.
>
>
>
>Please email either Elizabeth Bartholet or Mary Welstead
>with any questions and any suggestions you may have for
>related action.
>
>
>
>Please also forward this message to anyone you think might
>be interested in joining us in this effort.
>
>
>
>
>
>Ralph Richard Banks Janet Halley
>Jackson Eli Reynolds Royall Professor of Law
>Professor of Law Harvard Law School
>Stanford Law School Joan Heifetz Hollinger
>Paulo Barrozo Professor, Lecturer-in-Residence
>Harvard University School of Law
>Graduate Program and University of California, Berkeley
>Assistant Professor of David Kennedy
>Law Vice President for International
>Boston College Law Affairs
>School Interim Director, Watson Institute
>Elizabeth Bartholet for International Studies
>Morris Wasserstein University Professor of Law
>Professor of Law David and Marianna Fisher Univ.
>Faculty Director, Child Prof.of International Relations
>Advocacy Program Brown University
>Harvard Law School Director, European Law Research
>Katharine T. Bartlett Center
>A. Kenneth Pye Harvard Law School
>Professor of Law Randall L. Kennedy
>Duke University School Michael R. Klein Professor of Law
>of Law Harvard Law School
>Kathryn Bradley Michael Meltsner
>Senior Lecturing Fellow Matthews Distinguished University
>Director of Legal Professor of Law
>Ethics Northeastern Univ. School of Law
>Duke Law School David D. Meyer
>Margaret F. Brinig Assoc. Dean for Academic Affairs
>Fritz Duda Family and Professor of Law
>Professor of Law University of Illinois College of
>University of Notre Law
>Dame Martha Minow
>Jessica Budnitz Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of
>Lecturer on Law, Law
>Managing Director Harvard Law School
>Child Advocacy Program Henry J. Steiner
>Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus
>Richard Carlson Harvard Law School
>Professor of Law Joseph Vining
>South Texas College of Hutchins Professor of Law
>Law University of Michigan Law School
>James L. Cavallaro Lynn D. Wardle
>Clinical Professor of Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law
>Law, Harvard Law School Brigham Young University
>Executive Director, Mary Welstead
>Human Rights Program Visiting Professor in Law, Univ.
>David Chambers Buckingham, U.K.
>Wade H. McCree, Jr., Visiting Fellow, Child Advocacy
>Collegiate Professor, Program
>Emeritus Harvard Law School
>Univ. of Michigan Law
>School
>Brenda Cossman
>Professor of Law
>Univ. of Toronto Law
>School
>James Dwyer
>Professor of Law
>William & Mary Law
>School
>
>
>
>
>
>INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION POLICY STATEMENT
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>International Adoption should be an integral part of a
>comprehensive strategy to address the problems of
>unparented children, together with the development of
>better temporary care for children pending permanent
>placement, the development of in-country adoption and
>other truly permanent nurturing placement options, and the
>provision of social services to parents so that they can
>keep and nurture their children.
>
>
>
>International Adoption is consistent with other positive
>social responses to the problems of unparented children,
>bringing new resources into poor countries to support such
>efforts, and developing new awareness of and concern for
>the plight of poor children and poor communities
>worldwide.
>
>
>
>Adoption, whether domestic or international, generally
>serves children's interests better than any form of
>state-sponsored care, whether that be foster care or
>institutionalization, although there will always be
>exceptions to this general rule, including for example
>situations in which placement of a child in a permanent,
>nurturing kinship foster care situation will be preferable
>for that specific child to adoption.
>
>
>
>Children whose original parents cannot provide permanent
>nurturing care should generally be placed as soon as
>possible in a permanent adoptive home, whether domestic or
>international.
>
>
>
>Efforts should be made to identify in a timely way all
>unparented children and to promptly free for adoption all
>children who cannot or should not be reunited with their
>birth parents in the near future, and for whom there is no
>other preferable permanent parenting solution immediately
>available.
>
>
>
>Children free for adoption should be placed as soon as
>possible in appropriately screened adoptive homes, whether
>domestic or international: no children should be held
>whether in foster care or institutions for any period of
>time for the purpose of placing them in-country; any
>in-country preference should be implemented through a
>concurrent planning strategy, planning simultaneously for
>both domestic and international adoption, and preferring
>domestic adoption only if it will involve no delay in
>placement for the child.
>
>
>
>International Adoption should not be made more difficult
>for parents to accomplish than domestic adoption; given
>the inherent difficulties posed by adopting in a different
>country, efforts should be made to coordinate the adoption
>systems and related laws and policies of sending and
>receiving countries to reduce these inherent difficulties
>and make the international adoption process more
>comparable to the domestic process from the viewpoint of
>adoptive parents.
>
>
>
>Adoption abuses, such as kidnapping and baby selling
>(defined as payments to birth parents designed to induce
>them to surrender their child and their parenting rights),
>should be dealt with by enforcing the laws prohibiting
>such practices, and where needed developing new laws and
>policies to discourage such practices, without unduly
>restricting the placement of unparented children in
>domestic or international adoption, and without unduly
>limiting the private agencies and other adoption
>intermediaries that facilitate such adoption.
>To endorse this Policy Statement, click HERE.
>
>
>
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>
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>Child Advocacy Program | Harvard Law School | Cambridge |
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>
> --
>
> Odeana R. Neal
>
> Associate Professor
>
> University of Baltimore School of Law
>
> 1420 N. Charles Street
>
> Baltimore, MD 21201-5779
>
>
>
> 410-837-4644 (voice)
>
> 410-333-3053 (fax)
>
> OdeanaNeal (AIM)
>
>
>
> "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
>
> ~ John Wooden ~
>________________
>bartholet international adoption critique.pdf (372k bytes)
>________________
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>This email was sent using the University of Baltimore mailing list system. Messages sent via a University of Baltimore mailing do not necessarily represent the opinion of the University.
Professor Naomi Cahn
John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law
GWU Law School
(202)994-6025
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