Which countries actually return abducted children under the 1980 Hague Convention, and act in time — ranked on outcomes and timeliness, not on how much data they publish. Countries without enough outcome evidence are marked insufficient, not scored.
How to read this page. This is a data and policy analysis resource — not legal advice and not a legal determination of treaty compliance. Scores are provisional. Countries publish very different amounts of data; missing data lowers confidence, not performance. Resolved is not the same as returned. Where data covers U.S.-related cases only it is labelled proxy. Any budget figures shown are estimated, not official government spending.
What this index measures
The Index ranks countries on what actually happens to children: whether return cases are resolved rather than left open, and whether the system acts in a timely way (location, court decision, enforcement). Return effectiveness (45%) and speed & enforcement (30%) are the primary drivers; cooperation (15%) and data quality (10%) follow. Transparency is deliberately not scored — publishing a survey tells you a country shows its work, not that it returns children — so it is shown only as context and feeds confidence.
The hard part is honesty about data. Per-country return outcomes are largely unpublished: HCCH reports outcomes only globally (39% returned in 2021), and the only per-country outcome/timeliness data is the U.S. State Department's U.S.-related-cases-only report. So today only 14 countries have enough actual-outcome evidence to be ranked; the other 89 are marked insufficient data — the honest answer, not a transparency score. Proxy outcomes are small-sample and shrunk toward a baseline so a country that resolved 4 of 4 U.S. cases does not score 100.
45%
Return effectiveness — did children actually return — U.S.-proxy outcomes, small-N shrunk
30%
Speed & enforcement — timeliness of location, decision and enforcement
15%
Cooperation & compliance — official cooperation findings and concerns
10%
Data quality & confidence — strength of the evidence behind the score
context
Transparency (context) — HCCH data participation — context only, not scored in v2
context
Cost efficiency (context) — estimated public cost — shown on page, excluded from ranking
Ranking tiers
1 Tier 1: Strong measured return performance
Provisional overall score ≥ 80.
2 Tier 2: Good measured performance
Provisional overall score ≥ 65.
3 Tier 3: Mixed measured performance
Provisional overall score ≥ 50.
4 Tier 4: Weak performance / documented concern
Provisional overall score below 50.
– Insufficient data
Did not respond to HCCH surveys and no other per-country evidence — listed but not ranked.
Top performers
Best measured performance
Israel
73 / 100
Best return effectiveness (U.S.-proxy)
Israel
63.3 / 100
Best speed & enforcement (U.S.-proxy)
Israel
75 / 100
Best documented cooperation (U.S.-proxy)
Israel
80 / 100
All "best" figures are U.S.-proxy, small-sample and shrunk toward a baseline — indicative, not definitive. Only 14 of 103 Contracting Parties have enough outcome evidence to appear here at all.
Countries of concern
Contracting Parties carrying a U.S. Department of State pattern-of-noncompliance citation for CY2024 (a discrete official finding, U.S.-related cases only). This is not a legal finding of treaty violation, and each country has a right of response before any concern label is finalised.
Sort by any column; filter by region, EU status, tier, confidence. Return effectiveness & speed drive the score; transparency is shown as context only (last column). px = U.S.-perspective proxy. Only countries with actual outcome/timeliness evidence appear here; 89 others are listed as insufficient below.
Contracting Parties that did not respond to the HCCH statistical survey and have no other uniform per-country evidence. They receive a page and a set of FOIA questions rather than a score.
Albania · Andorra · Armenia · Australia · Austria · Barbados · Belarus · Belgium · Bolivia (Plurinational State of) · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Cabo Verde · Canada · Chile · China (People's Republic of) · Colombia · Costa Rica · Croatia · Cuba · Cyprus · Czechia · Denmark · Dominican Republic · El Salvador · Estonia · Fiji · Finland · France · Gabon · Georgia · Greece · Guatemala · Guinea · Guyana · Hungary · Iceland · Iraq · Ireland · Italy · Jamaica · Japan · Kazakhstan · Latvia · Lesotho · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Malta · Mauritius · Mexico · Monaco · Montenegro · Morocco · Netherlands (Kingdom of the) · New Zealand · Nicaragua · North Macedonia · Norway · Pakistan · Panama · Paraguay · Philippines · Portugal · Republic of Moldova · Russian Federation · Saint Kitts and Nevis · San Marino · Serbia · Seychelles · Singapore · Slovakia · Slovenia · South Africa · Spain · Sri Lanka · Sweden · Switzerland · Trinidad and Tobago · Tunisia · Türkiye · Turkmenistan · Ukraine · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland · United States of America · Uruguay · Uzbekistan · Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) · Zambia · Zimbabwe
Methodology & calculation
Verified twice at build time. Every published score passes an automated raw-data-vs-source check and a formula-vs-displayed-score check (103 countries; current build: raw ✓ pass, formula ✓ pass). Each country page carries its own transparent calculation object; all are in calculations.json.
Budget note. No country publishes a Central-Authority budget line. Where enough is disclosed, country pages show a transparent Level-B/C estimate of cost-per-returned-child (wide ranges, low confidence, proxy denominator). Because these are estimates, Cost Efficiency is deliberately excluded from the cross-country ranking — updated only where budget data is sufficiently reliable.
Full write-up: ranking methodology (with the reconciliation of the earlier T07 compliance-index draft). In brief:
Return effectivenessdid children actually return — U.S.-proxy outcomes, small-N shrunk
45%
Speed & enforcementtimeliness of location, decision and enforcement
30%
Cooperation & complianceofficial cooperation findings and concerns
15%
Data quality & confidencestrength of the evidence behind the score
10%
Transparency (context)HCCH data participation — context only, not scored in v2
context
Cost efficiency (context)estimated public cost — shown on page, excluded from ranking
context
Formulas, normalization & missing-data treatment
overall (provisional v1.0) = Transparency & Participation score
− 15 if the country carries a U.S. pattern-of-noncompliance citation (and it is capped below Tier 1)
→ transparency is the ONLY category measurable uniformly and monotonically across all countries today.
Return-effectiveness, speed, cost and full cooperation are null for most states, so they are shown
per-country but do NOT move the cross-country sort (that would bias the ranking toward the handful of
countries the U.S. happens to report on). As those categories become uniformly published, the full
6-category weighting (35/20/15/15/10/5) takes over — see the methodology page.
transparency = 40·(answered 2021 survey)
+ 30·(share of prior HCCH studies answered; years-not-yet-a-party excluded)
+ 15·(reports both incoming & outgoing flows)
+ 15·(reports access cases)
confidence = evidence × (0.35 + 0.65 × breadth)
evidence = 0.6·mean_tier + 0.4·freshness # E1=1.0, E2=0.85, E3=0.7
breadth = (# of 6 categories with any evidence) / 6
gate: confidence ≥ 0.35 to receive a provisional score
rules: unknown → null (never 0). "resolved" ≠ "returned". proxy data never aggregated into a global rate.
Disclaimers
Data availability varies enormously by country; missing data lowers confidence, not performance.
Some data is proxy-based (U.S.-related cases only) and is labelled as such; it is never converted into a global return rate.
Resolved is not the same as returned.
Budget figures are not yet available for any country; cost-efficiency is unscored.
Rankings are analytical, not legal determinations. Nothing here should be read as a definitive legal finding of compliance or non-compliance unless an official source supports it.
The Hague Return Accountability Index is a provisional analytical resource published by SafeReturn Alliance. It is not affiliated with the HCCH or any government. It is not legal advice and not a legal determination of Convention compliance. Version 1.0 · data year 2021 · updated 2026-07-06.