Dr. Geoffrey Shannon:

I was asked to address the European Parliament last year on the issue of both adoption and surrogacy, and I made a lengthy submission on it. The Parliament is currently looking at developing a new instrument to address intercountry adoption and surrogacy, as the private international law aspects have yet to be comprehensively addressed. The Hague conference on private international law is currently considering this issue, so if it is of assistance to the committee, I would be happy to share the observations that I mentioned in that context.