International legislation instrument on surrogate motherhood: prospects of creation

Abstract

Surrogacy is rapidly growing in intensity in almost the entire world, particularly in Ukraine, at the same time rapidly challenging international private law. Significant differences in approaches to this matter between various countries lead to conflict of laws and the need for its resolution at the international level as well as development of appropriate unified rules by creating an international instrument on surrogate motherhood. In this article, the author is trying to find out what the prospects of creating such a special instrument are today. It has been discovered that research on the possibilities of such regulation has been conducted within the framework of the Hague Conference on Private International Law for about ten years. To this end, a special Group of Experts has been set up within the organization to hold annual meetings and report on them. It is established that the need to create an international instrument on crossborder surrogacy agreements has been recognized at the international level. The Expert Group is currently exploring the possibility of implementing this project. The Expert Group decided that the purpose of this document would be to secure the recognition in the States Parties of a court decision on parentage that resulted from surrogacy. Consideration is also given to extending the document on recognition of acts of competent authorities on the registration a child’s birth and their legal status, given that in many countries parentage resulting from use of surrogate motherhood procedures is established without judicial involvement. It has been clarified that an international legal instrument will be developed in the form of a protocol operating in parallel with the Convention on the Recognition of Legal Parentage, which the Expert Group is also currently working on as part of a single project. In the article, it is discovered what features and provisions the future document may contain. Having analyzed the works of scientists, reports of the Expert Group and other materials, the author concludes that in the next few years a draft protocol on the recognition of paternity, established on the basis of cross-border surrogacy agreements, may be developed.