The Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Couples in Europe and the Role of the European Court of Human Rights

The legal regulation of family relationships has long been formulated around a “traditional” notion of the family as a unit comprising a heterosexual married couple who conceive children within wedlock. This has resulted in the protection mechanisms of the law focusing on such family units, with other family forms such as, for example, same-sex couples, unmarried couples, couples who are unable to conceive naturally and single parents failing to have their family relationships adequately recognised and protected in law. This often included, at least initially, not recognising “non-traditional” families’ rights to respect for their family life under Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). However, in recent decades there has been progress in dispelling the traditional notion of the family and in adapting the law to the modern realities of family life. One example of such progress in motion relates to the legal status of homosexual couples in Europe, which is the focus of this article.