Inchoate

Incomplete or not fully formed or developed. The term is most often used in law in criminal law as crimes like attempted murder or attempted kidnapping are said to be “inchoate” crimes, i.e., the person committing did not fully complete their objective. In the family law context, the U.S. Supreme Court used it to describe certain parental rights–specifically, the right to ne exeat (the right to decide a child’s custody of residence) as an inchoate right, i.e., the right is essentially dormant until one of the parents seeks to remove the child from the country; at that point, the other parent’s ne exeat right is activated, and they can choose to accept or decline the other parent’s request. See Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U.S. 1 (2010),