Cross-Border Surrogacy and the Right to Respect for Family Life

Abstract

Surrogacy is indisputably connected with the right to respect for family life guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), many issues are open as disputable, among other things also in the context of the connection between cross-border surrogacy and the right to respect for family life. Taking into account the circumstances of each specific case, ECHR considered, first of all, the question of the (non)existence of a genetic link between the intended parents and the child born by the surrogate mother, the duration of cohabitation between them and the legal uncertainty that surrogacy creates, i.e., their possible impact on the violation of the right to respect for family life.