International Surrogacy: Challenges to International Law

Surrogacy is one of the possible routes to parenthood. In such arrangements, the surrogate mother commits herself to hand the child over to the intending parents. Surrogacy first gained public attention three decades ago, in the mid-1980s. Since then it has become an increasingly popular choice for would-be parents unable to conceive a child of their own. International surrogacy is a phenomenon which is truly global in its reach and most often involves more than two countries. The variety of domestic responses to surrogacy has resulted in infertile couples seeking to have a child in this way travelling between countries and choosing surrogacy-friendly jurisdictions as their destinations. In so doing, they are effectively able to bypass the bans that are imposed on surrogacy in their own jurisdiction and create multifaceted legal and cultural encounters. I would like to give an overview of the challenges to international law posed by international surrogacy. Recent case-law of the European Court of Human Rights has an impact on the private international law approaches of different countries, favoring a certain degree of harmonization among them.