The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA; (; ) is a United States law that establishes national standards for the assertion of

child custody Child custody is a legal term regarding '' guardianship'' which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of ''legal custody'', which is the righ ...

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

. The Act gives preference to the home state in which the child resided within the past six months for the purpose of preventing a child's parent from forum shopping, that is, initiating legal action in a different state for the purpose of obtaining a favorable court ruling. The Act's name represented its sponsors' concern that forum shopping was being used in cases of ''parental kidnapping'' in which one parent interferes with the custodial rights of another parent. The PKPA provides that a state cannot modify the child custody decree of another state without complying with the terms of the PKPA. If a state modifies an earlier child custody order without doing so, states are not required to recognize the later order. The enactment of the

Defense of Marriage Act The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...

(DOMA) in 1996 created a conflict in the case of children of a legally married same-sex couple. A state that does not recognize same-sex marriage is required by PKPA to enforce child custody orders originating in a state that does, which DOMA allows states to refuse to recognize.Rena M. Lindevaldsen, "Same-Sex Relationships and the Full Faith and Credit Clause: Reducing America to the Lowest Common Denominator," Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 29 (2009)
accessed July 21, 2012

References

External links

Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act

Forum Shopping
United States federal criminal legislation 1980 in American law Kidnapping in the United States {{US-fed-statute-stub