BATTAGLIA, J.

This case involves the interpretation of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, Sections 9.5-101 to 9.5-318 of the Family Law Article, Maryland Code (1984, 2006 Repl.Vol.).1 Peter Paul Toland, Jr.,2 Appellant, challenges the Circuit Court for Montgomery County's determination that a Japanese decree providing guardianship of his minor child to the child's grandmother, Akiko Futagi, Appellee, without notice to him, did not constitute a violation of his due process rights. He also argues that the Circuit Court's dismissal of his Complaint to Establish Custody, pursuant to Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, was error. On our own motion and prior to any proceedings in the Court of Special Appeals, we granted certiorari to consider the following questions:

We shall hold that the Circuit Court's dismissal of Mr. Toland's complaint did not violate his due process rights under the United States Constitution and the Maryland Declaration of Rights, as they were not implicated by the Japanese decree. We also shall hold that the Circuit Court properly applied the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act to conclude that it should not exercise jurisdiction over Mr. Toland's Complaint to Establish Custody of his daughter, because the child had no connection with Maryland, and Japan, where she was born and has lived her entire life, had not declined custody jurisdiction. In so holding, we shall affirm the Circuit Court's dismissal of Mr. Toland's Complaint to Establish Custody.

Introduction

Whenever a child custody dispute in Maryland involves another state or another country, the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act is implicated. In re Kaela C., 394 Md. 432, 454, 906 A.2d 915, 928 (2006). The Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which is currently codified as Sections 9.5-101 through 9.5-318 of the Family Law Article, was enacted in 2004 to replace its predecessor, the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, which was initially enacted in 1975 and codified as Sections 184 to 207 of Article 16, Maryland Code (1957, 1966 Repl.Vol., 1977 Supp.) and was later repealed and recodified5 as Sections 9.5-201 to 9.5-403 of the Family Law Article, Maryland Code (1984, 1985 Supp.).

By way of background, in 1968, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws6 drafted the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act to address the problem of conflicting custody decrees among states and foreign countries and a "growing public concern over the fact that thousands of children are shifted from state to state and from one family to another every year while their parents or other persons battle over their custody in the courts of several states." Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Prefatory Note, 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 262 (1999); see also In re Kaela C., 394 Md. at 454, 906 A.2d at 928 (The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act was designed to "address both the increased mobility of individuals and the negative results of that mobility, namely the rampant kidnaping of children by parents looking to relitigate custody determinations in a more favorable forum, a tactic known as `seize and run.'"). The concern was that movement of a child from state to state, by parents or family members seeking a more favorable custody decree in another jurisdiction, created an instability that inhibited the child's ability to develop personal attachments or a sense of belonging in a community. Courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, had yet to clarify whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution applied to custody determinations, which often led to "a custody decree made in one state one year [that] is often overturned in another jurisdiction the next year or some years later and the child is handed over to another family, to be repeated as long as the feud continues." 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 263-64.

In order to determine which state had jurisdiction, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act limited interstate custody jurisdiction to the child's "home state," where the child had lived for at least six months prior to the proceeding, or the state that had strong contacts with the child and family. Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Section 3(a), 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 307. Where a state was not the home state or of significant connection to the child, then only in instances of emergency, such as when the child was abandoned in the state, or when no other state had jurisdiction, would a state assume jurisdiction over an interstate child custody determination. Id. To further discourage competition among states, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act also required that a court decline jurisdiction upon learning of an ongoing proceeding in another state, and permitted a court to decline jurisdiction upon determining that the petitioner had wrongfully taken the child from another state, or that the court was an inconvenient forum because, for example, another state had a closer connection with the child. See Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Sections 6, 7, 8, 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 474, 497-98, 526. The Act also required a court to maintain a registry of out of state custody decrees and to recognize and enforce decrees from other states and foreign countries. Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Section 16, 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 625-26. In effect, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act required a court, upon learning of an interstate dimension of a child custody proceeding brought before it, to engage in a two-step inquiry: determine whether it had jurisdiction and, if so, whether it should exercise jurisdiction.

In 1997, the Commissioners revised the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act "in light of federal enactments and almost thirty years of inconsistent case law." Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act, Prefatory Note, 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 650. One of the federal enactments referred to was the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738A,7 which expressly provided that full faith and credit must be given to child custody determinations. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act conflicted with the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act in part because the latter provided that both the home state of the child and the state having significant connections with the child and family could exercise jurisdiction, whereas the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act gave exclusive jurisdiction to the home state, so as to avoid concurrent jurisdiction with another state. See Section 1738A(c)(2)(A) of Title 28, United States Code.

The Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act was enacted in 1975, in order to

Legislative Council of Maryland, Report to the General Assembly of 1975: Proposed Bills 174-75 (1975). The Maryland Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act was enacted in 2004 and repealed the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act at the same time; the purpose of the new Act remained the elimination of competition among states in determining interstate child custody disputes. See Garg v. Garg, 393 Md. 225, 239, 900 A.2d 739, 747 (2006) ("Jurisdiction or its exercise under both the UCCJA and UCCJEA is a threshold legal issue that the law requires be resolved expeditiously."); see also Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act, Section 101 cmt., 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 657.

The Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, codified in Section 9.5-201(a) of the Family Law Article, prescribes that a Circuit Court in this State has jurisdiction to entertain a child custody complaint if Maryland is the home state of the child:

Section 9.5-201(a) of the Family Law Article. The Act also provides that a Circuit Court may decline to exercise jurisdiction if it determines that it is an inconvenient forum, pursuant to Section 9.5-207 of the Family Law Article, or that "a person seeking to invoke its jurisdiction has engaged in unjustifiable conduct," under Section 9.5-208 of the Family Law Article. It also contains a catch-all "vacuum jurisdiction" provision, Section 9.5-201(a)(4) of the Family Law Article, which allows a court in this State to exercise jurisdiction where no other state, including a foreign country, can.8

In the present case, Maryland is not the home state of Mr. Toland's child, while Japan is. At issue is the international application of the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which is discussed in Section 9.5-104 of the Family Law Article:

Section 9.5-104 of the Family Law Article. Subsection (c) contains the language upon which Mr. Toland relies to assert that a Maryland circuit court can exercise jurisdiction over his child in Japan. That section provides that a Maryland court need not apply the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act in a situation in which the child custody laws of a foreign country "violate[ ] fundamental principles of human rights." Section 9.5-104(c) of the Family Law Article. Although the term "fundamental principles of human rights" was left undefined in the Act proposed by the Commissioners, as well as in the Maryland statute, the drafters alluded to a similar provision in the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, which permits a country to refuse to return a child if the return would violate "the fundamental principles of the requested State relating to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms," which has been interpreted by the United States Department of State as "utterly shock[ing] the conscience or offend[ing] all notions of due process." Hague International Child Abduction Convention; Text and Legal Analysis, 51 Fed. Reg. 10,494, 10,510 (1986); see also Unif. Child Custody Jurisdiction & Enforcement Act, Section 105 cmt., 9 U.L.A. Part IA, at 662.

Factual and Procedural Background

Mr. Toland filed a Complaint To Establish Custody in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, alleging that he was entitled under Section 5-203(a) of the Family Law Article, Maryland Code (1984, 2006 Repl.Vol.),9 as the sole surviving parent, to custody of his nine-year-old daughter, Erika,10 who presently lives with her maternal grandmother, Akiko Futagi in Japan, after having lived in Japan since her birth. Etsuko, Mr. Toland's ex-wife and the mother of the child, had previously been awarded custody by a Japanese Court. Etsuko died in 2007, and a Japanese decree issued thereafter, and without notice to Mr. Toland, appointed Ms. Futagi, the grandmother, as the guardian of Erika. Upon learning of the guardianship decree, Mr. Toland amended his complaint and alleged that Maryland was the appropriate forum to determine custody because he resided in this State, and under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act,

Ms. Futagi responded to Mr. Toland's complaint and filed a "Motion to Dismiss Custody Proceeding for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction and Pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act of Maryland and For An Award of Counsel Fees under Maryland Statute Section 9.5-208."11 She attached to a subsequent Memorandum of Law in Support of the Motion to Dismiss an affidavit of her Japanese family law expert, Yorimichi Ishikawa,12 who attested that under Japanese law, Ms. Futagi was awarded guardianship, which neither equates to custody nor prevents Mr. Toland from pursuing custody in Japan, and that notice of the guardianship proceeding to the biological parent was not required. A hearing on the Motion to Dismiss occurred, during which Mr. Toland and his expert on Japanese family law, Mikiko Otani, testified. Ms. Otani confirmed that Japanese law did not require notice of the guardianship proceeding to Mr. Toland and that the guardianship decree did not prevent Mr. Toland from pursuing custody of his daughter in a Japanese court.

Judge Steven G. Salant of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, the presiding judge, thereafter issued a Memorandum Opinion, which included findings of fact and conclusions of law. The findings of fact are not in dispute before us.13

Judge Salant found that in 1995, Mr. Toland married Etsuko Futagi in Japan and they later had one child, Erika, who was born in Japan and has not left that country. In 2003, Etsuko took Erika, ostensibly without Mr. Toland's consent, to live with her mother Akiko Futagi and later obtained a Japanese divorce decree that awarded the wife custody of Erika. Judge Salant stated:

(internal footnotes omitted).

Judge Salant then found that after the wife's death in 2007, Erika remained in Japan with her grandmother, Ms. Futagi, who was awarded guardianship of the child by a Japanese court:

(internal footnotes omitted). Judge Salant, in a footnote, observed that Mr. Toland was not notified of the proceeding awarding guardianship to Ms. Futagi:

In his conclusions of law, Judge Salant determined that Japan was the home state of Erika under Maryland's version of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, Section 9.5-201(a)(1) of the Family Law Article, because Erika "has lived exclusively in Japan for her entire life":

Judge Salant then addressed Mr. Toland's argument that Maryland could exercise "vacuum jurisdiction" under Section 9.5-201(a)(4) of the Family Law Article, because Japan should have declined jurisdiction under Section 9.5-208, as Erika's presence in that jurisdiction was allegedly caused by the wife and grandmother's "unjustifiable conduct," when the wife took Erika from their family home in 2003. Without addressing whether their conduct was unjustifiable, Judge Salant concluded that the Circuit Court could not exercise "vacuum jurisdiction" until after Japan declined jurisdiction, which Japan had not done:

(emphasis in original).

Judge Salant addressed Mr. Toland's second argument related to the exception to the application of the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, under Section 9.5-104(c) of the Family Law Article, because, allegedly, Japan's child custody laws violate the "fundamental principles of human rights":

(emphasis in original). Judge Salant observed that the term "fundamental principles of human rights" was left undefined by the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, but that the Comment of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws suggested that fundamental fairness could be included within the term's meaning:

Fundamental freedoms, Judge Salant determined, encompassed due process under the United States Constitution, including the fundamental liberty interest of a parent to the care, custody and control of the child:

The fundamental liberty interest of a parent in a child, however, is not absolute, according to Judge Salant:

Based upon the aforegoing discussion, and the determination that the procedures and considerations for awarding custody in Japan were akin to the best interests of the child standard in Maryland, Judge Salant held that, because the Japanese custody laws did not violate fundamental fairness, the exception to the international application of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act did not apply, and the Circuit Court should not exercise jurisdiction over the present interstate custody dispute:

Judge Salant dismissed Mr. Toland's Complaint to Establish Custody14 and Mr. Toland timely appealed.

Discussion

We initially address whether the Circuit Court, in dismissing Mr. Toland's complaint, violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, as Mr. Toland initially argues in his first question. While we have often stated that the due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 24 may differ in application, see, e.g., Frey v. Comptroller of the Treasury, 422 Md. 111, 176-77, 29 A.3d 475, 513 (2011), both clauses are synchronistic in that "[t]he first prerequisite to raising a due process argument is that the action complained of must constitute `state' action." Pitsenberger v. Pitsenberger, 287 Md. 20, 27, 410 A.2d 1052, 1056 (1980), citing Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974). Such state action may include a court's recognition and enforcement of a foreign decree. See Rentals Unlimited, Inc. v. Motor Vehicle Administration, 286 Md. 104, 111, 405 A.2d 744, 749 (1979) (observing that "the due process clause. . . forbids the recognition and enforcement of a foreign judgment rendered by a court which lacks jurisdiction").

In the present case, however, it is clear that these proceedings do not involve Ms. Futagi seeking to register or enforce the guardianship decree in Maryland, and Judge Salant reviewed the decree at the behest of Mr. Toland only to determine whether Japanese child custody law violated the "fundamental principles of human rights" for purposes of Section 9.5-104(c) of the Family Law Article. Without judicial enforcement of the foreign decree in Maryland, Mr. Toland's due process rights were not implicated by the Circuit Court's consideration of the Japanese decree in the limited context of determining whether the exception under the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act applied.

As to Mr. Toland's challenge to the Circuit Court's application of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, we first address whether the Circuit Court properly applied Section 9.5-201(a) of the Family Law Article to conclude that it should not exercise jurisdiction. Under the framework of Section 9.5-201(a), the home state of the child ordinarily has exclusive jurisdiction and it is undisputed that Maryland is not the home state of Erika, because she has never lived in or visited this State.

Mr. Toland argues, however, that the Circuit Court should have exercised "vacuum jurisdiction," under Section 9.5-201(a)(4), because Erika's continuous presence in Japan is the result of the unjustifiable conduct of Ms. Futagi and Mr. Toland's ex-wife and therefore requires Japan to decline jurisdiction. He argues that Japan, where Erika has lived for her entire life, is precluded from being considered her home state because "the mother and maternal grandmother, Ms. Futagi, engaged in the unjustifiable conduct of surreptitiously removing the minor child from the Father without his knowledge or consent." This argument has not been proffered to a Japanese court in a custody dispute. The Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act does not authorize a Maryland circuit court to decline jurisdiction on Japan's behalf. Therefore, Judge Salant's refusal to exercise vacuum jurisdiction under Section 9.5.-201(a)(4) and conclusion that the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act applied was appropriate.

Alternatively, Mr. Toland asserts that the exception to the application of the Maryland Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, Section 9.5-104(c), is implicated in this case, by arguing that his fundamental rights as a parent were violated by various aspects of Japanese family law. Initially, he argues that the appointment of Ms. Futagi as guardian of his daughter was an infringement on his fundamental right as a parent to the care, custody and control of his child; thus, the failure to notify him of the proceeding constituted a violation of the "fundamental principles of human rights" and permits the Circuit Court to disregard the ordinary jurisdiction limitations of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.

Ms. Futagi responds, in support of the Circuit Court's dismissal, that Japanese child custody laws are not implicated because the Japanese guardianship decree does not inhibit Mr. Toland's ability to pursue custody of his daughter in Japan.

Custody of a child, which is undoubtedly a parental right protected under both the United States Constitution, Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000), as well as the Maryland Declaration of Rights, In re Samone, 385 Md. 282, 300-01, 869 A.2d 370, 380-81 (2005), encompasses the "care, control, and maintenance of a child." Black's Law Dictionary 441 (9th ed. 2009). Custody generally follows biology, and a biological parent is deemed the natural custodian of a child, DeGrange v. Kline, 254 Md. 240, 242, 254 A.2d 353, 354 (1969), and, in custody cases between a parent and a third party, we adhere to the presumption that based on this natural connection, a child's best interests are served by permitting the parent to retain custody of the child. Koshko v. Haining, 398 Md. 404, 423, 921 A.2d 171, 182 (2007) ("This presumption is premised on the notion that `the affection of a parent for a child is as strong and potent as any that springs from human relations and leads to desire and efforts to care properly for and raise the child, which are greater than another would be likely to display.'").

A guardianship, in contrast, generally is an outgrowth of a court decree. As we noted in Kicherer v. Kicherer, 285 Md. 114, 400 A.2d 1097 (1979), a guardian's role in relation to the child or ward, including the temporality, purpose, and authority of the appointment, is defined by the court:

285 Md. at 118-19, 400 A.2d at 1100-01 (internal citations omitted). In the Kicherer case, a husband and son of a mentally-disabled adult woman were appointed co-guardians of her person and property. Although we dismissed as moot each of the co-guardians' appeals, each seeking the termination of the guardianship appointment of the other, we instructed that the lower court, pursuant to its equitable authority, require the co-guardians to file reports and accountings documenting the woman's care regularly, to ensure they carried out their duties properly.

A court, therefore, has equitable jurisdiction to appoint a "guardian of the person of a minor simply for the purpose of making a particular type of decision for that minor" or for a number of purposes. In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 10935, 342 Md. 615, 628, 679 A.2d 530, 536 (1996); see Black's Law Dictionary 774 (9th ed. 2009) (A guardian "may be appointed either for all purposes or for a specific purpose."). In Wentzel v. Montgomery General Hospital, Inc., 293 Md. 685, 447 A.2d 1244 (1982), we ratified the notion that a grandmother and an aunt of a minor child could petition to be appointed as co-guardians for the purpose of consenting to a proposed surgical procedure for the child.

The role of a guardian is, therefore, separate and distinct from that of a custodian of a child. In In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 10935, 342 Md. 615, 679 A.2d 530 (1996), a case involving the resignation of a co-guardian, we reiterated that a parent may name a guardian for his or her child, without termination of a parent's right to custody. See also Monrad G. Paulsen and Judah Best, Appointment of a Guardian in the Conflict of Laws, 45 Iowa L.Rev. 212, 213 (1960) ("Legal custody can be given to one person or agency while another remains the guardian.").

In this case, the Japanese decree established a guardianship, as found by the Circuit Court. Ms. Otani, Mr. Toland's expert, and Ms. Ishikawa, Ms. Futagi's expert, confirmed that the guardianship decree was not equivalent to custody and that Mr. Toland remained able to seek custody of Erika. The guardianship, therefore, has not severed Mr. Toland's custodial rights to his daughter and did not implicate "fundamental principles of human rights."

Mr. Toland, however, asks us, as he did the Circuit Court, to review all Japanese child custody law, including the methodology and criteria for awarding custody, even though there was no custodial determination in the present case. Any question regarding Erika's custody, which is not ripe, would require us to render an advisory opinion based upon "a matter in the future, contingent and uncertain," which is "a long forbidden practice in this State." Hickory Point Partnership v. Anne Arundel County, 316 Md. 118, 129, 557 A.2d 626, 631 (1989), quoting Boyds Civic Association v. Montgomery County Council, 309 Md. 683, 690, 526 A.2d 598, 601 (1987) and Hatt v. Anderson, 297 Md. 42, 46, 464 A.2d 1076, 1078 (1983).

When we have addressed whether the law of a foreign state is fundamentally unfair in the family law context, we have done so in cases in which the issue was ripe for consideration. In Aleem v. Aleem, 404 Md. 404, 947 A.2d 489 (2008), for example, we considered whether to apply comity and recognize the effect of a husband's performance of talaq, which is the recitation of "I divorce thee . . ." three times with the effect under Pakistani law of unilaterally terminating a marriage, during the pendency of a divorce proceeding in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. The lack and deprivation of basic rights to the wife, as exemplified by the facts of the Aleem case, we determined, was contrary to the public policy of this State; we therefore concluded that the talaq law was not entitled to comity in this State. 404 Md. at 425-26, 947 A.2d at 502.

We conclude, therefore, that the appointment of Ms. Futagi as Erika's guardian, without severing Mr. Toland's right to custody, did not violate his fundamental rights and that the Section 9.5-104(c) exception to the application of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, allowing for a Circuit Court to exercise jurisdiction despite not being permitted to do so under Section 9.5-201(a), is not applicable. The Circuit Court properly applied the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act to the present case to dismiss Mr. Toland's complaint; we, therefore, affirm.

JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.