Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Italy
Date of decision:

The Italian authorities refused to transcribe the applicant's Ukrainian birth certificate, either in full or in part. The applicant, who was born through gestational surrogacy in Ukraine, was consequently denied a legal parent-child relationship with her intended parents under Italian law, as well as any nationality. The Court ruled that the Italian authorities' refusal to transcribe the birth certificate, even in part, prevented the establishment of a legal parent-child relationship between the applicant and her biological father, which was in contradiction with Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Greece
Date of decision:

The applicant is a stateless Palestinian and unaccompanied minor who was granted asylum in Greece in 2016 together with his father and slibings. Due to neglect by the father, the applicant and his siblings were placed in care and the prosecutor decided it was in their best intersts to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territory to reunite them with their mother. The application concerns the decision to return him to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which the children were opposed to, the reception conditions in Greece, and the failure to appoint a guardian. The Court decided to strike the application as inadmissible as the applicant was no longer at risk of being returned to the Occupied Palestinian Territory when the decision was revoked by the authorities.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Finland
Date of decision:

The applicant claimed that Finland violated Articles 8 and 14 ECHR when Finnish authorities allegedly arbitrarily denied him Finnish nationality, despite statements issued by the Russian authorities on his nationality status and the fact that he did not acquire Russian nationality at birth, contrary to the decision of the Finnish authorities based on their interpretation of Russian nationality law. The Court found the application manifestly ill-founded and therefore inadmissible, and held that the Russian authorities’ statements on the applicant’s nationality status, while ambiguous, could imply that he had acquired Russian nationality at the time of his birth.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Azerbaijan
Date of decision:

Azerbaijani authorities refused to issue an identity card to children born in Azerbaijan to foreign parents, thereby denying them Azerbaijani nationality (as domestic law applicable at the time applied the jus soli principle). The Court held that the refusal by the national authorities to deliver an identity card to the children is tantamount to a refusal to recognise their Azerbaijani nationality. This had considerable negative consequences for the children and therefore constituted an interference with their right to a private life in violation of Article 8 ECHR. It further found that the necessary procedural guarantees were not in place and that the decision was arbitrary.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section)
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the refusal to grant legal recognition in France to parent-child relationships that had been legally established in the United States between children born as a result of surrogacy treatment and the couples who had had the treatment. The Court found that totally prohibiting the establishment of a relationship between a father and his biological children born following surrogacy arrangements abroad was a violation of Article 8 concerning the children’s right to respect for their private life, under Article 8.