A Short History of the Hague Convention #33 and it's Impact of International Adoptions:

The process from conception to were we are today on the Hage Convention #33 and establishing guidelines and the retification process for sending countries and receiving countries as it relates to the international adoption process has been very long and arduous.  Following is a short history of the process and some resulting issues that we feel you need to know:

History:

The Hague Convention #33 was initiated some 15 years ago.  It was developed to set internationally agreed upon norms and procedures for countries who participate in intercountry adoption, both sending countries and receiving countries. The mission, at least in part and from the outset, was to develop safe and consistant guidelines to prevent child-trafficking and other abuses and govern the adoption process from both sides of the issue, all in the best interest of the children.  Today, The Hague Convention is multilateral treaty that includes 66 prospective member countries.

The United States has signed the Hague Convention but has not yet ratified.  Ratification will occur when the instruments of ratification are deposited at the Hague.  At that time, the U.S. Department of State will become the Central Authority for the United States.

The longer the process has taken, the more buricratic it has become and the more it has drifted from that initial mission of helping more children find safe, loving families through the international adoption process. The resulting proposed regulations have clearly become a consumer protection plan for the adoptive parents and is clearly designed to eliminate the smaller agencies that populate a large percentage of the international adoption scene.

The Hage Regulations, as they are referred to, are simply the response of our Department of State to develop and impliment the regulations to address the laws associated with the Intercountry Adoptin Act of 2000.

On October 6, 2000: President Clinton signed into law the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000, the US implementation of the Hague Convention on International Adoption.

In September 2005:

The U.S. Department of State has finished its review of the public comments submitted and has sent the regulations to the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for final review and approval.  OMB has up to 90 days to review the regulations, after which they will most likely publish the regulations as final in the Federal Register.  JCICS will continue to monitor the situation and will update this page with any new developments. 

What’s next:

Once the regulations are finalized and published the Department of State (DOS) will designate the accrediting entities. At this time, there are 5 states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont and Connecticut) and one national accrediting entity (The Council on Accreditation) who have expressed interest and are currently in negotiations with DOS.  Once the accrediting entities are officially designated and are ready to accept applicants (we do not know the timeframe for how long it will take the entities to be ready), then accreditation will begin. It is estimated that accreditation will last for 15-24 months to allow enough time for all interested international adoption agencies to apply.  After the deadline for accreditation, the US will submit it's instruments of ratification and three months later enter into force and become a "Hague Country".

Some key issues some agencies find concerning:

• Liability insurance: The initial draft of the Hague Regs created by State Dept. contained unprecedented liability insurance requirements.  Potentially would require agencies to obtain insurance to protect themselves against lawsuits brought against their foreign coordinators and (key aspect) in foreign courts.  This sort of liability insurance doesn’t currently exist and would be enormously expensive if it were created (insurance comps. see the possibility of beings sued in foreign court highly risky.) 
• Staff qualifications: Reqs like MSWs on staff, etc.  Small agencies in rural areas worry that they’ll be put out of business because they won’t be able to find these employees.
• State Dept will become central authority: State dept would become like CCAA.  All adoptions would be processed through that entity.  No longer a combination of USCIS and State Dept.  The hope is that it would streamline things, but many people believe it would bottleneck adoption work and that we’d see huge waits for US paperwork to be processed.
• Underfunding of Central Authority: Ahh… the concern of every department in the history of government.  The regs would create a new adoption office in the state dept AND give it immediate authority over all adoptions, but it doesn’t provide the level of funding necessary to hire staff, etc. to properly process those cases… hence the concern about the bottleneck effect.
• All agencies will have to be accredited to show they meet Hague Regs: This is a process that will probably be expensive and extensive… it will definitely separate the good agencies from the bad ones, but a lot of agencies don’t like the thought of this.

Closing thoughts:

The question arises that, when and if the Hague Regs are completed and subsequently enforced, the following is inevitable: Many agencies that are now helping thousands of children find homes through the international adoption process will simply cease to be able to do so; as a result of the financial demand that the "certification or accreditation process" will bring to bear on all agencies interested in intercountry adoptions, the adopotion process will become much more expansive.

If we only considering these two factors, and there are many, many more resulting form these regulations, it would stand to reason that at the end of the day, there will be fewer agencies to work with parents, fewer parents that will be able to afford the increased fees brought on by increased regulatory demands on the agencies, and the resulting inevitable fact that far fewer children will find homes.  And all of this in the best interest of children that have no voice and much less time.