Children's Rights in International Commercial Surrogacy: Exploring the challenges from a child rights, public international human rights law perspective

Achmad, C.I. (2018)

Doctoral Thesis

International Commercial Surrogacy (ICS) has emerged over the past decade as a modern method of family formation. ICS is unregulated internationally and domestic laws are struggling to keep pace with ICS. However, a child is at the centre of every ICS arrangement,  and children conceived and born through ICS are at a heightened risk of their rights being infringed.

Written over the course of time when ICS has rapidly developed, this book explores why and how the child's rights are at risk in ICS, and seeks to apply the standards and norms of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to the ICS context. 

This book proposes approaches for balancing the competing rights and interests of the child and other parties in ICS. It presents a framework for protecting the rights of children born through ICS, illustrating that this is achievable in practice, in the absence of international consensus on ICS as a phenomenon.

This book is relevant for child rights practitioners and academics, and useful for policy-makers, legislators and national and international decision-makers grappling with the children’s and human rights issues presented by this 21st century human rights challenge.

• Children's Rights
• International Human Rights
• Surrogacy
• Public International Law
• Human rights practice
• Children
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Surrogate motherhood
• Identity
• Nationality

• All authors: Achmad, C.I.
• Supervisor: Brunning, M.R.
• Co-supervisor: Vonk, M.J.
• Committee: Lawson, R.A.; Loenen, M.L.P.; Sandberg, K.; Schrama, W.M.; Sloth-Nielsen, J.J.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Child Law Department, Law, Leiden University
• Date: 2018-06-26
• ISBN (print): 9789402810615