After almost 10 years in the court system, an international child custody case has been dismissed after the child at issue reached the age of 16. The case was even heard before the United States Supreme Court, which set precedent on how The Hague Convention should be interpreted by federal courts.

The Hague Convention is an international treaty that attempts to provide recourse for parents whose children have been abducted across international borders by the other parent. But even with the treaty, these child custody cases can be very complex as they involve different governments and court systems.

In this case, the boy was taken from Chile to the United States by his mother without the permission of his father and despite a Chilean court order that prohibited either parent from doing so. The boy's father, who is British, retained a family law attorney in the United States and fought to get his son back.

Over much of the past decade, the case made its way to the Supreme Court, which took it as an opportunity to clarify the scope of The Hague Convention, the authority of federal courts to intervene in international custody fights and whether or not another country's child custody order is enforceable here.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court held in a 6-3 vote that the Chilean custody order establishes a "right of custody" in the United States and the father could continue to use the federal court system in effort to reunite with his son. The case was then remanded to a lower federal court.

However, The Hague Convention only applies to children under the age of 16, so after the boy reached this age recently the case was dismissed by a federal judge. Notably, the boy allegedly told the court that he didn't want to live with his father.

Source: CNN, "Child at center of high court fight over custody gets closure," Bill Mears, Feb. 14, 2012