Hague Convention Becomes U.S. Law, Page 2
Enacting Legislation Despite the acknowledged success of intercountry adoption, the rare instances of confirmed abuses - mainly involving children whose biological parents did not legally sign papers allowing their children to be adopted or the payment of bribes - led to calls, especially in the early 1980s, for corrective action on the part of the international community. There were calls to essentially ban or severely restrict intercountry adoption. Others suggested that the system could be cleaned up and made to work better rather than being junked.
The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (THC) is the response to those challenges. Since THC is a treaty, it must be ratified by each nation that wishes to operate under its framework. In some countries, this can be done through an administrative action, but in the U.S., a treaty requires the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate and, in most instances, including the THC, implementing legislation.
Implementing legislation describes precisely how the U.S. government is to put any treaty into place, including what federal agencies are going to be assigned responsibilities under the treaty.
The U.S. has decided to give the lead responsibility to the Department of State, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service continuing to play a role with home studies and other immigration-related matters. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has had no real role in intercountry adoption by U.S. citizens, is purposefully excluded from having any responsibility in the implementing legislation.
The legislative process effectively began with the March 3, 1999 introduction in the Senate of S. 682, implementing legislation, which had as its lead sponsor the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms (R-NC). As the person who is in a position to advance or block treaties, Chairman Helms' sponsorship of the implementing legislation was a very positive and critically important signal of his willingness to see the treaty ratified, so long as the implementing legislation was reasonably close to something he could support. For bipartisan balance, Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was the original Senate co-sponsor.
Overcoming Hurdles S. 682 was controversial for several reasons. As a result, action was stalled in the Congress for months as ideological and professional differences were debated by the staff members of key Members of Congress.
Two issues were not settled after months of work. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, did not see the need for what he thought was simply new bureaucratic barriers to intercountry adoption by U.S. citizens. Sen. Brownback wanted an alternative to the Council on Accreditation, the obvious choice of many organizations as the body that would approve U.S. agencies to work under the Convention. Sen. Brownback wanted a guarantee of workable, less expensive and less time-consuming options for smaller agencies. Sen. Brownback was concerned that, lacking such options, agencies would either have to substantially raise the fees charged adoptive parents or close down. Sen. Brownback obtained a solution he could accept. The solution in the law is to offer, among other alternatives, the opportunity for state licensing bodies to take on accreditation duties for agencies wishing to work under the Convention. In addition, a phase-in period giving agencies placing between 50 and 99 children an extra year to be accredited and smaller agencies two extra years to be accredited was included in the implementing legislation.
© William L. Pierce, Ph.D.
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