Surrogate Motherhood: Protecting the Best Interests of the Child in Light of Recent Case Law

Surrogate motherhood is a highly debated issue, and one for which there is now considerable case law. However, adequate protection for the multiple interests at stake has yet to be offered, especially in those legal systems in which lawmakers have been slow in intervening, or dig in behind absolute prohibitions unable to stem the phenomenon of procreative tourism. This contribution reconstructs the position of the ECtHR and of Italy’s Constitutional Court and Court of Cassation in their most recent rulings, with the aim of understanding the diverse approaches taken to identify the best interests of the child.