The purpose of this chapter is to examine the international law standards governing adoption that the countries examined in this book have committed to, and to extract the key principles and themes from those standards. In line with the theme of the book, the analysis will focus on the issue of adoptions from care. The international standards governing this specific issue have received limited attention in the literature to date. International, inter- country or transnational adoptions have received some attention, with some of the discussion focusing on the position of the child and their rights in this process The adoption requirements of Article 8 of the ECHR and its connection to the ECAC (Rev) have also been discussed (albeit often in passing) in the general international scholarship dealing with the right to respect for family life. However, to date, a comprehensive analysis of the combined effect of the various international provisions in the specific context of adoptions from care has not been provided. This chapter will fill that gap by asking: what are the international law standards that bind the countries featuring in this book when making decisions to place children for adoption without parental consent? To answer this question, the various international instruments of relevance to adoption will first be introduced. This will be followed by a thematic analysis of key issues that feature in the international law provisions.