Some Comparative Reflections on the Right to Know One’s Origins

Abstract

The issue focuses on a family law topic, the right to know one’s origins, to examine it in some different cases, as adoption or assisted reproduction, in relation to the right to a private life, to show how “roots and space” can shape the different amplitude of individual rights in different legal systems. Despite the national and international recognition of this fundamental right, important disparities remain in the enforcement of it between international regimes and the national implementations of these regimes, as consequence of the gradual adaptation process of the right to know origins to fit the context of national legal frameworks with diverse local, political and social cultures.