The Construction of Fatherhood
The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Explores the ECtHR's understanding of what it means to be a 'father' and the role of doctrines of interpretation.

Alice Margaria (Author)

9781108475099, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 November 2019

214 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.6 cm, 0.41 kg

'Not only socio-legal scholars will truly benefit from reading this excellent study. (Legal) gender studies scholars will also discover many valuable insights here, especially with regard to the phenomenon of legal ambivalence.' Petra Sussner, European Convention on Human Rights Law Review 2

This book tackles one of the most topical socio-legal issues of today: how the law - in particular, the European Court of Human Rights - is responding to shifting practices and ideas of fatherhood in a world that offers radical possibilities for the fragmentation of the conventional father figure and therefore urges decisions upon what kind of characteristics makes someone a legal father. It explores the Court's reaction to changing family and, more specifically, fatherhood realities. In so doing, it engages in timely conversations about the rights and responsibilities of men as fathers. By tracing values and assumptions underpinning the Court's views on fatherhood, this book contributes to highlight the expressive powers of the ECtHR and, more specifically, the latter's role in producing and legitimising ideas about parenting and, more generally, in influencing how family life is regulated and organised.

Introduction
1. Fatherhood and the law in Europe
2. The ECtHR and fatherhood: limits and potential
3. Fatherhood and assisted reproduction
4. Post-separation and unmarried fatherhood
5. Fatherhood and family-work reconciliation
6. Fatherhood and homosexuality
7. Fatherhood at the ECtHR.

Subject Areas: Gender & the law [LAQG], Law & society [LAQ], Jurisprudence & general issues [LA]