Leiden University Scholarly Publications

This report is in part based on the author's comparative analysis of the LawsAndFamilies Database (www.LawsAndFamilies.eu) in his 2017 report More and more together: Legal family formats for same-sex and different-sex couples in European countries.The report notes clear and rapid trends, among a large majority of the 21 European countries surveyed, of offering same-sex couples the opportunity to formalise their relationship as marriage and/or as registered partnership, and of attaching more and more rights and responsibilities to the cohabitation, the registered partnership and/or the marriage of two people of the same sex. It concludes that the consensus among these countries is particularly strong as regards:

• legal protections for times of death (such as: tenancy continuation, wrongful death compensation, inheritance, inheritance tax exemption, survivor’s pension);
• legal protections for times of other great sadness (such as: next of kin provisions, protection against domestic violence, leave from work in case your partner or your partner’s parent is in need of care);
• the right to come and live in the same country as your partner;
• the possibility to take (at least some) responsibility for your partner’s children.

The high levels of consensus on these particular issues, may assist the European Court of Human Rights in narrowing the freedom that countries have had in deciding what rights and responsibilities to make available to same-sex couples.The report was written for the Council of Europe (at the initiative of its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Unit) for a conference (Copenhagen, 2 March 2018) on equal opportunities and rights in private and family life for lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. That conference was co-organised by the Danish Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Danish Parliament, and the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The latter Committee, in September 2018, referred to this report in its own report Private and family life: achieving equality regardless of sexual orientation, which on 10 October 2018 led to the adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly on of Resolution 2239(2018).