Scherpe and Fenton-Glynn together with Terry Kaan will be hosting a major international and comparative conference on surrogacy in Hong Kong on 9 and 10 September.
With the advances in artificial reproductive techniques, and an increasingly globalised world, surrogacy has gone from a niche practice to a global market, raising questions of parenthood, conflict of laws, and the commercialisation of the birth process. While there have been comparative studies undertaken concerning approaches to surrogacy from Europe and “Western” jurisdictions, there is gap in the literature with regard to the approach international surrogacy in Asia (and indeed Africa). As such, this conference will bring together academics from both Eastern and Western jurisdictions in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the confluences and tensions between the way in which surrogacy is approached in these two regions. Speakers will present on the laws of Australia, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States of America. Views from the bench will be delivered by Sir Mark Hedley (retired High Court Judge, England and Wales), Chief Justice John Pascoe (Federal Court of Australia) and Dr Frank Klinkhammer (Judge, German Federal Court of Justice), and Prof. Nick Hopkins (Law Commission of England and Wales) will speak on the process of law reform in this area.
The following resources are available to download:
For further information see the conference website. The findings of this conference and comparative research project will be published by Intersentia Publishing in 2017.
The conference is open to the public and there is no conference fee.
Please register on the CMEL website, or contact Ms Yun Ling Au at auling@hku.hk.