What counts as 'rights of custody' under the Hague Convention when deciding whether a removal was wrongful?

Under the Hague Convention, "rights of custody" is a broad, specifically defined concept that includes the right to determine a child's place of residence, not just day-to-day care — so a parent can hold "rights of custody" for Hague purposes even if, under Ontario's domestic parenting terminology, they'd be described as having parenting time or a role in decision-making responsibility. This matters because a removal or retention of a child can be "wrongful" under the Convention if it breaches these rights of custody, whether they arise from a court order, an agreement, or simply operation of law in the child's home country.

Rights that relate only to spending time with a child, without any say over where the child lives, are generally treated differently — often described as "rights of access" under the Convention — and don't on their own support a wrongful-removal claim, though they can still matter to the overall case. Because whether a specific parent's rights qualify as rights of custody depends on the law of the child's habitual residence before the removal, this is a genuinely technical question that benefits from legal advice familiar with international child abduction cases.