Ms Jeannette Woellenstein:

I thank the Deputy for his excellent questions. As he will understand, the principles are aspirational and recall international standards in children's rights. However, they try to take into account current realities. If the Deputy reads through them, he will see that some of their provisions deal explicitly with states that permit surrogacy, states that prohibit it and states that simply encounter it. They are aspirational, but the idea was not to be too prescriptive. They are meant to take into account realities that exist on the ground as well as some promising practices. By looking at the various consultations in different regions in the world, we were able to learn more about some surrogacy systems or legislative measures that already have some experience behind them. The principles are informed by promising practices.

Perhaps Mr. Ayoub has information on whether they have served to inspire legislators and policymakers to implement them in practice, but it might be too early to say, as they were only adopted last year. Since then, we have been disseminating and promoting them, but we do not know whether they have led to concrete changes and implementations in practice. Does Mr. Ayoub wish to jump in on this point before I move on to best interest determinations?