I am not a child care lawyer - here in the UK - but surely the UK law has got this bit right. A child does not "belong" to anyone. Parents do not have "parental rights", they have "parental duties" - and in any (yes, I mean any) dispute over those things, the welfare of the child is the paramount (yes, the paramount)consideration.

As to the American children allegedly kidnapped, the English courts can only have applied that consideration - and I suspect that they bumped onto one of the areas where child care does not work so well - the tendency, which I think is excessive, to say that moves are disruptive so that is in the best interests of the child to stay pretty well anywhere once they have been there a while.

As to Elian, it certainly seems sad, if you look at it that way, that his mother died trying to free him and because she died he has to go back to the place from which he tried to escape. But is that cultural imperialism? What would you have said of a child whose mother was shot trying to get out of East Berlin?

Finally, is it wise to assume, as some posters here seem to do, that Castro was a change for the worse for Cubans? At least they now have access to education and medicine and some even if not total equality of opportunity.