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Marriage, Family, Discrimination & Contradiction: An Evaluation of the Legacy and Future of the European Court of Human Rights' Jurisprudence on LGBT Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been considering whether same-sex couples should have the rights to marry and to be recognized as a family under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) for over thirty years. In the 1980s the European Commission of Human Rights (the Commission) and the ECtHR respectively rejected the notion that same-sex relationships constituted a “family life” under Article 8 of the ECHR, and that post-operative transgendered persons had the right to marry under Article 12. However, throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, the ECtHR handed down a body of judgments that incrementally liberalized these rights (albeit not always smoothly) in favor of LGBT persons. This evolution culminated in part on 24 June 2010, when the ECtHR passed judgment in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria. In that case the First Section of the ECtHR made a number of major, but seemingly contradictory rulings. For the first time in its history, the ECtHR ruled that same-sex relationships expressly constitute a “family life” under Article 8, and that the right to marry under Article 12 was not confined to opposite-sex couples in “all circumstances.” However, the ECtHR simultaneously ruled that Member States are under no obligation to protect that “family life,” by providing same-sex couples with access to marriage under Article 12, or an alternative registration system under Articles 8 and 14. The Grand Chamber denied the applicants' subsequent request for a referral.