conférence de la haye de droit international privé - HCCH

provides for the recognition and enforcement of sister state orders; it establishes rules so that
there is only one outstanding child support order between the parties; and it establishes rules
among states for establishing and modifying support orders.
Thus, although it is true that child support is primarily a matter of state law in the United
States, because of both federal and state actions much of that law is substantively the same
from state to state. The areas where state laws are not uniform include, by way of example,
guidelines (all states must have uniform guidelines that limit the decision maker’s discretion in
determining the amount of a child support order, but the substance of those guidelines differs
from state to state); the duration of the child support obligation (i.e., when a child ceases to
be a dependent); and the statute of limitations for enforcing payment of arrears.
Title IV-D and UIFSA have special provisions for international cases. In general, if a foreign
country is determined under either federal or state law to be a “reciprocating” country, it is
treated as if it were a state of the United States for purposes of child support enforcement, and
all of the procedures and enforcement mechanisms available under title IV-D and UIFSA for
interstate cases are available for cases from that foreign country.
The United States is not currently a party to any multilateral convention on maintenance (see
answers to 1999 questionnaire, supra, for explanation). Therefore, the provisions of title IV-D
and UIFSA are the only mechanisms for the enforcement of foreign child support obligations
through a public agency.
ISRAEL
Introduction
In order to get a clearer understanding of the way in which maintenance obligations works in
Israel, it is first necessary to understand a few salient aspects of family law in Israel.
Firstly, a distinction needs to be made between civil and religious law. There are certain family
law matters, where the religious law is applied as opposed to the civil law. In these cases, the
law of the respective religion a person practices, is the law that will be applied. In other words,
if a person is Jewish, then Jewish law will be applied; if a person is a Muslim, then Islamic law
will be applied, and so on. This is what hereinafter will be referred to as the ‘personal law’. If a
person does not have a personal law, then civil law makes provisions for those circumstances
such as in the Family Law Amendment (Maintenance) Act 1959 (hereinafter - the Maintenance
Act).
Another principle which needs to be understood is that of the court’s jurisdiction. The civil and
religious courts have parallel jurisdiction in most family law matters, and the court in which the
matter is heard, is dependant firstly on the parties’ choice and secondly the court before which
the matter was first brought. If a matter calls for the personal law to be applied, it will be
applied even if the matter is heard in a civil court. It should be noted, however, that only a
religious court can grant the actual decree of divorce, but any matters incidental to the
divorce, such as custody and maintenance, can be heard by either a civil or religious court.
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