When child custody issues drag on for a long time, at some point they are resolved not because the parties come to an agreement, but simply because the process has run its course. This is the case with a contentious battle between two parents that has spanned several years and three continents, but is now over because the boy at the center of the fight is too old.

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but also involved Chilean courts. In the case, an American mother took her son from Chile to the United States without the permission of her estranged husband, who is British. Courts in Chile had ruled that neither parent was allowed to take the child out of the country without permission from the other.

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the boy's father to continue his appeals to try to get the boy to return to Chile. However, despite that country's earlier rulings, Chilean jurists also said that the father was not a custodial parent and thus had limited parental rights.

As the boy got older, he was able to express his resistance to living with, or even have contact with, his father. Ultimately, the case came to an end earlier this year. Because the boy turned 16, he was no longer eligible for Hague Convention coverage, which applies to children who have been abducted across international borders.

As a result, a federal judge in this country dismissed the case between the parents this month. The boy's mother said she was never sure if the case would come to a conclusion, but now that the boy is safe, she said nothing else matters.

Source: CNN, "Child at center of high court fight over custody gets closure," Bill Mears, Feb. 14, 2012