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14-15 ISIL Y.B. Int'l Human. & Refugee L. 177 (2014-2015)
Resolving Statelessness Arising out of Surrogacy in India: A Legal Analysis

handle is hein.journals/isilyrbk13 and id is 182 raw text is: RESOLVING STATELESSNESS ARISING OUT OF SURROGACY IN INDIA: A LEGAL ANALYSIS SANOJ RAJAN* I. INTRODUCTION International surrogacy induced statelessness is a comparatively new phenomenon that emerged because of advancement in Artificial Reproductive Technology. Most births of children conceived through medically assisted reproductive techniques do not cause special problems in the field of nationality laws.' However, in cases of international surrogacy arrangements, there is a grave risk of statelessness for children if the states of the surrogate mother and the commissioning parents do not attribute nationality to the children because of the various reasons discussed in this article. Surrogacy as a matter of fact, is highly regulated or actively discouraged by law or regulatory bodies in most countries. The objectives of restrictive laws are to avoid exploitation of vulnerable women and children, prevent trafficking of women and newborns, circumvention of international adoption protocols and in some cases prevention of statelessness among children thus born. However, Indian legal system is not very proactive so far in looking at the issue on statelessness angle, though attempt has been made to regulate surrogacy as a medical procedure and industry.2 Studies estimate that surrogate mothers have given birth to more than 25,000 children in India alone, and about half of these children now live in * Masters in Human Rights (Oxford), LLM, Ph.D., Professor and Dean, School of Law, Ansal University, India and Affiliate, HHI, Harvard University, USA. 1 Gerard-Rene De Groot, Children, their Right to a Nationality and Child Statelessness in Alice Edwards, Laura Van Waas (eds), Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 165. 2 Nirmal K. Ganguly, Preface to Indian Council of Med. Research & Nat'l Acad. of Med. Sci., National Guidelines for Accreditation, Supervision, and Regulation of Art Clinics in India, at xii (2005) [ART Guidelines], <http://www.icmr.nic.in/art/artclinics.htm> accessed on 10 March 2016.