As late as next year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide a case at the crossroads of two issues mentioned before on our New Jersey blog: international child removal and child custody cases involving members of the armed forces. These issues can be particularly difficult to deal with because the law involved is complex and can depend on international treaties.

The case that will go before the nine justices next term involves a family of three: a mother, a father and their 5-year-old daughter. The daughter has spent most of her life in Scotland with her mother while her father served in the U.S. Army. Two years ago, the mother and daughter came to the U.S. as the husband and wife tried to mend their marriage. They were unsuccessful, and after a divorce, a child custody disagreement followed.

The ex-spouses took their case to state court, where a judge awarded custody to the father. But when the matter moved to federal district court, the judge ruled that the daughter should be reunited with her mother in Scotland. The governing law in that decision was the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

The father appealed the case, but the appellate court affirmed the lower court’s ruling. The father has opined that the way the court decided the case has created a split among the federal circuits. The Supreme Court may take cases in order to clarify a point of law on which various circuits disagree. Families in similar situations may want to keep watch on this case as the outcome could provide further guidance in a complicated area of child custody law.

Source: CNBC.com, “Supreme Court to hear int’l child custody dispute,” Jonathan Stempel and Terry Baynes, Aug. 13, 2012.