Best Interests as a Rule of Procedure
Reflection on Different Regulatory Responses to Surrogacy
Abstract
This article examines the extent to which the best interests of the child, under Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, has been utilized as a rule of procedure when developing legislative responses to surrogacy. Three jurisdictions are examined which have adopted vastly different regulatory responses to surrogacy: Sweden, impliedly prohibiting surrogacy; England and Wales, permitting surrogacy on an unenforceable basis; and California, providing for enforceable surrogacy agreements. Through analysis of the development of the legislation in each jurisdiction, it is argued that the concept of best interests carries a significant risk of being a term of empty rhetoric and seeks to reinforce the value of using child’s rights impact assessments to ensure a child-centric approach to surrogacy regulation.
Keywords: best interests; surrogacy; children’s rights; UNCRC.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Those who contribute items to Amicus Curiae retain author copyright in their work but are asked to grant two licences. One is a licence to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, enabling us to reproduce the item in digital form, so that it can be made available for access online in the open journal system, repository, and website. The terms of the licence which you are asked to grant to the University for this purpose are as follows:
'I grant to the University of London the irrevocable, non-exclusive royalty-free right to reproduce, distribute, display, and perform this work in any format including electronic formats throughout the world for educational, research, and scientific non-profit uses during the full term of copyright including renewals and extensions'.
The other licence is for the benefit of those who wish to make use of items published online in Amicus Curiae and stored in the e-repository. For this purpose we use a Creative Commons licence (http://www.creativecommons.org.uk/); which allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to your entry in Amicus Curiae and/or SAS-SPACE; but they can't change them in any way or use them commercially.
