{"id":4244,"date":"2026-07-02T11:23:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T09:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/?p=4244"},"modified":"2026-07-02T11:26:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T09:26:43","slug":"illegal-intercountry-adoptions-what-reforms-are-needed-to-ensure-access-to-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/illegal-intercountry-adoptions-what-reforms-are-needed-to-ensure-access-to-justice","title":{"rendered":"Illegal Intercountry Adoptions: What Reforms Are Needed to Ensure Access to Justice?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, June 19, Vey &amp; Associ\u00e9s took part in a conference at the French National Assembly dedicated to illegal practices in intercountry adoption.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Alongside historians, institutional representatives, legal practitioners, and, most importantly, adoptees, Ma\u00eblys Renoux San Millan participated in a panel discussion on the challenging pursuit of justice and reparation, together with Am\u00e9lie Beauchemin (WJ Avocats) and Professor Olivier de Frouville.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Our experience representing individuals who were illegally adopted from Ethiopia highlights several major obstacles to establishing the truth and obtaining recognition of the harm they have suffered:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The absence of a specific criminal offence:<\/strong> French criminal law does not recognize illegal intercountry adoption as a standalone offence. Prosecution therefore relies on general criminal offences\u2014such as fraud, kidnapping, or incitement to abandon a child\u2014which fail to reflect either the specific nature or the seriousness of these practices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>An inadequate statute of limitations:<\/strong> Irregularities are often discovered decades after the events took place. By that time, the limitation period has frequently expired.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Significant evidentiary obstacles:<\/strong> the destruction or disappearance of archives, denial of access to case files, the complexity of international judicial cooperation, and the absence of a specialized investigative service all make it extremely difficult to establish the facts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to all the participants for the richness of their contributions and discussions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Adoption internationale : v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et r\u00e9paration \u2013 Assembl\u00e9e nationale Wj Avocats Vey &amp; Associ\u00e9s IAM\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r3piCV_2JjQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, June 19, Vey &amp; Associ\u00e9s took part in a conference at the French National Assembly dedicated to illegal practices in intercountry adoption. &nbsp; Alongside historians, institutional representatives, legal practitioners, and, most importantly, adoptees, Ma\u00eblys Renoux San Millan participated in a panel discussion on the challenging pursuit of justice and reparation, together with Am\u00e9lie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4248,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4244\/revisions\/4248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vey-associes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}