A/HRC/37/60
B.
1.
Recommendations
At the national level
77.
The Special Rapporteur invites all States to:
(a)
Protocols;
Ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its three Optional
(b)
Adopt clear and comprehensive legislation that prohibits the sale of
children, as defined by the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, in the context
of surrogacy;
(c)
Create safeguards to prevent the sale of children in the context of
commercial surrogacy, which should include either the prohibition of commercial
surrogacy until and unless properly regulated systems are put in place to ensure that
the prohibition on sale of children is upheld, or strict regulation of commercial
surrogacy which ensures that the surrogate mother retains parentage and parental
responsibility at birth and that all payments made to the surrogate mother are made
prior to any legal or physical transfer of the child and are non-reimbursable (except in
cases of fraud) and which rejects the enforceability of contractual provisions regarding
parentage, parental responsibility, or restricting the rights (e.g. to health and freedom
of movement) of the surrogate mother;
(d)
Create safeguards to prevent the sale of children in the context of altruistic
surrogacy, which should include, where altruistic surrogacy is permitted, proper
regulation of altruistic surrogacy (e.g. to ensure that all reimbursements and payments
to surrogate mothers and intermediaries are reasonable and itemized and are subject
to oversight by a court or other competent authority, and that the surrogate mother
retains parentage and parental responsibility at birth);
(e)
Ensure that in all parentage and parental responsibility decisions
involving a surrogacy arrangement, a court or competent authority makes a post-birth
best interests of the child determination, which should be the paramount consideration;
(f)
Ensure that in all parentage and parental responsibility decisions
involving a surrogacy arrangement, a court or competent authority conducts an
appropriate and non-discriminatory suitability review of the intending parent(s), either
prior to or after the birth or both;
(g)
Closely regulate, monitor and limit the financial aspects of all surrogacy
arrangements, with a requirement for full disclosure of the financial aspects of all
surrogacy arrangements to the court or competent authority reviewing the surrogacy
arrangement;
(h)
Regulate all intermediaries involved in surrogacy arrangements, in
regard to the financial aspects, relevant competencies, use of contractual arrangements,
and ethical standards;
(i)
Regulate the medical aspects of surrogacy arrangements to ensure the
health and safety of the surrogate mother and child, including by placing appropriate
limits on the number of embryos transferred to a woman at one time;
(j)
Protect the rights of all surrogate-born children, regardless of the legal
status of the surrogacy arrangement under national or international law, including by
protecting the best interests of the child, protecting rights to identity and to access to
origins, and cooperating internationally to avoid statelessness;
(k)
Focus any criminal or civil penalties for illegal surrogacy arrangements
primarily upon the intermediaries;
(l)
Collect, analyse and share comprehensive and reliable data, and conduct
qualitative and quantitative research studies, on surrogacy arrangements and their
impact on human rights, to ensure that accurate information is available, and facilitate
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