The Cabinet approved a bill Friday that would create a domestic law in preparation for signing the Hague treaty on settling cross-boarder child custody disputes.
If the Diet enacts the bill, Japan will sign the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspect of International Child Abduction, and the new domestic law will be enforced three months after signing the pact, a Justice Ministry official said.
He said there is no target as to when Japan will sign the convention, which would theoretically promise other countries that Japan will try its utmost to return children abducted by an estranged spouse.