ABSTRACT
Intercountry adoption is a subject that has seized much popular attention, with headlines in the news about celebrity adoptions.1 These adoptions can be used to highlight many of the underlying legal issues and controversies which have remained unresolved within intercountry adoption. In one respect, intercountry adoption is seen as an act which provides a loving and secure home to a child who faces an otherwise bleak future. On the other hand, depictions of intercountry adoption include reports of child-trafficking, children being kidnapped, mothers relinquishing their children under dubious circumstances, and comments that intercountry adoption is an exploitation of poor countries and impoverished inhabitants of those states by wealthier and more powerful nations. Needless to say, then, intercountry adoption is not without controversy or widely divisive views on its utility and necessity.
