Internationales Elternschaftsrecht

Due to changes in family structures and advances in reproductive medicine, alternative parent-child constellations are increasingly emerging. If foreign legal systems depart from German law-for example by recognizing the legal parenthood of a surrogate or co-mother, or by providing for legal multi-parenthood-cross-border cases may result in conflicting determinations of parentage. Which determination prevails is decided by private international parentage law, either through the recognition of foreign decisions pursuant to §§ 108 and 109 of the Act on Proceedings in Family Matters (FamFG) or through the conflict-of-laws designation of the applicable law under Articles 19 and 20 of the Introductory Act to the Civil Code (EGBGB). Against this background, Joshua Kohler examines whether the existing law still adequately addresses these developments, with particular emphasis on the best interests of the child. He concludes that current law already affords sufficient scope for appropriate solutions, while at the same time proposing more far-reaching reforms extending to the level of the European Union.