 | Géraldine Mathieu Maître de conférences / Chargée de projets - Université de Namur - Faculté de Droit / Defence for Children International - Belgium Law, Bioethics - Medical ethics, Psychology |
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02.02.2015-27.02.2015
The Right of the Child to know her Origins
Issues of secrecy and anonymity come back repeatedly in a series of topics related to parentage and procreation : adoption, birth secret, assisted reproduction with anonymous donor, surrogacy, incest, DNA test. Has the legislator the right to deny a human being to know where it comes from? Should the law recognize and ensure to all individuals the right to know his maternal and paternal origins? On an international scale, should we recognize a human right to know its origins? And besides, what is meant by “origins”? These are the various questions that the thesis meet, in an approach combining comparative and multidisciplinary, before developing a model for resolving conflicts that may arise between the right of an individual to know its origins and the right of others persons, more specifically the one of the biological parents but also of legal parent (adoptive parents, intended parents, …), to privacy. This model is based on the technique of the balance of interests and is founded on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. Built around a gradation in the lifting of the secrecy of origins, based on both the context in which the secret is laying, on the different levels of the search for identity and the need to respect the interests of the child, this model is established by reference to Belgian law which he revealed some gaps that the thesis tries to overcome de lege lata and de lege ferenda. It is intended to apply equally beyond Belgian borders as it seems crucial that each State makes the maximum progress towards the recognition and enforcement of the right of every person to know its origins. My stay at the Brocher Foundation will be an opportunity for me to push further my research on two specific points : the removal of the donor anonymity in assisted reproduction and the more specific question of the sui generis action in establishing origins, as it exists in Swiss law , so as to integrate it into Belgian law of parentage.
Geraldine Mathieu is Senior Lecturer at the University of Namur where she teaches family law. She also teaches Bioethics and Human Rights in the Advanced Master in Human Rights and is involved in the Interdisciplinary Certificate in child rights about the impact of children's rights in the family.
She is also a researcher and member of Interdisciplinary Centre for Human Rights of the Child (www.lecide.be), of the Law Center of the person, the family and its heritage (UCL-CEFAP ), of the Youth commission of the League of Human rights, of a hospital ethics committee, of the Supreme Council of the adoption and the editorial board of the quarterly Journal of family Law.
She is also project manager for the NGO Defence for Children International (DCI-Belgium - www.dei-belgique.be).
His research focuses on filiation, adoption, rights of the children, Bioethics and Human Rights. His doctoral dissertation, which she defended the April 24, 2014, focuses on the secret of origins in the law of filiation (adoption, birth secret, assisted reproduction with donor, surrogacy, incest, DNA-test).
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