A/HRC/37/60 and standards in relation to adoption will be erased, and a new generation of human rights violations will emerge. 28. There are significant differences between adoption and surrogacy, and not all rules applicable to adoption apply to surrogacy. Nonetheless, certain human rights principles are applicable to both, including the prohibition of the sale of children,61 the best interests of the child as a paramount consideration,62 the lack of a right to a child,63 strict regulations and limitations regarding financial transactions,64 rights to identity and access to origins,65 and protections against exploitation.66 The present report focuses on the necessity of maintaining these human rights standards against the pressures created by the large-scale practice of a market- and contract-based form of commercial surrogacy. C. Abusive practices in surrogacy systems 29. Abusive practices in the context of surrogacy are well documented. Examples include convicted sex offenders from Australia and Israel employing surrogate mothers from India and Thailand, 67 a wealthy Japanese man employing 11 surrogate mothers, leading to the births of 16 infants in Thailand and India,68 the abandonment of a surrogacy-born infant with disability in Thailand,69 and the abandonment or sale of “excess” surrogate-born infants in twin births in India.70 Commercial surrogacy networks transfer surrogate mothers, sometimes while pregnant, across national borders in order to evade domestic laws; in one case, 15 Vietnamese women were found and freed by Thai authorities, leading to human trafficking charges in the context of a baby-farming scheme.71 30. Many of these abuses occur in unregulated contexts, often in cases involving intending parents from Western countries employing for-profit intermediaries to contract with vulnerable surrogate mothers in developing countries. 72 However, abusive practices also occur in purportedly well-regulated commercial surrogacy jurisdictions. For example, two prominent surrogacy attorneys were criminally convicted in a baby-selling ring in California, a centre for international surrogacy arrangements.73 According to governmental authorities, a prominent surrogacy attorney admitted that “she and her conspirators used gestational carriers to create an inventory of unborn babies that they would sell for over $100,000 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 See the Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 35; and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. See the Convention on the Rights of the Child, arts. 3 and 21. Saclier, “Children and adoption”, pp. 12–13; and Van Bueren, The International Law on the Rights of the Child (1995). See the Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 21 (d); the 1993 Hague Convention, arts. 4 (c) (3), 8 and 32; and HCCH, “Note on the financial aspects of intercountry adoption”. See the Convention on the Rights of the Child, arts. 7, 8 and 9. Ibid., art. 35; the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, of 2000. See, for example, www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=6933; www.abc.net.au/news/2014-0806/baby-gammys-father-convicted-on-more-than-20-child-sex-charges/5653502; and [2016] FCWA 17, available at www.familycourt.wa.gov.au/_files/Publications/2016FCWA17anon.pdf. See Samantha Hawley, Japanese man fathers 16th baby via surrogate in Thailand, 9 September 2014, at www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-10/japanese-surrogacy-man-has-another-baby/5732856. See [2016] FCWA 17 as per footnote 67 above. See, for example, www.bionews.org.uk/page_460525.asp and http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/03/darkside-of-international-surrogacy.html. See https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-03-18/underworld-upending-asian-baby-farm and www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2096675/how-asias-surrogate-mothers-became-crossborder-business. See sources cited in footnotes 67–71 above. Smolin, “Surrogacy as sale of children”, pp. 328–330. 9