The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction applies to cross-border removals or retentions of children in breach of custody rights. This dissertation analyses the impact of children’s rights on the interpretation of the Child Abduction Convention. The focus is on the role children’s rights may play in challenging areas of the Convention, and in particular in the context of immigration-based defences to the child’s return. The approaches of the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights to the individual children’s rights in parental child abduction cases in general and to those with immigration components in particular are analysed.