Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This chapter considers the regulation of payments within surrogacy arrangements in the UK. After outlining well-known critiques of the current law, the chapter evaluates the approach to payments adopted by the Law Commissions. Thereafter, it takes a wider perspective, considering how a reformed legal regime could approach the issue of payments to surrogates and whether such ‘ambiguity’ is inherent to regulating payments. The chapter contends that the regime for payments requires a ‘clear regulatory rationale’ and sets out some potential underlying bases for this. It then explores whether it is possible to resolve the ambiguities of the current legal regime, and the equivocations of the law reform process, or whether these ambiguities will remain in any system regulating payments to surrogates
This chapter provides insights into surrogacy in Aotearoa New Zealand, one of only three jurisdictions in the world that requires pre-approval of domestic surrogacy arrangements involving fertility clinics by an ethics committee. It argues that while this process adds additional time and cost to surrogacy arrangements, having an independent committee that considers the interests and needs of all parties involved in the arrangement may increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. It then considers the current law reform process underway in New Zealand and analyses potential recommendations for change, noting how analysis of these may provide an alternative approach to the regulation of surrogacy for other countries reviewing their surrogacy laws.
This chapter explores developments regarding surrogacy at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It identifies emerging themes from case law, which indicate a clear preference for genetic connection, alongside a vague application of the child’s best interests. It argues that this apparent European standard serves as a basis to assess the compatibility of the Law Commissions’ proposals with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It is concluded that this standard is very low, due to surrogacy being unlawful in the states referred to the court and concludes that a different application of the Convention’s standards would be more appropriate in the UK context.
This chapter outlines the reasons people seek surrogacy arrangements abroad. It also sets out the ethical concerns regarding some practices in the international context, particularly relating to a lack of safeguards where unregulated surrogacy takes place. It is argued that, instead of a stance that seeks to encourage people to undertake domestic surrogacy, UK policy should accept that ‘global surrogacy’ is a reality. In this regard, it is argued that the legal framework should focus on encouraging – as far as possible – informed consent by all parties in surrogacy, adequate support for those involved and protection of the welfare of the child.
This concluding chapter summarizes the monograph’s key findings. It reiterates the lack of transparency around contemporary family mediator practice. The chapter then considers three broad implications of the monograph. First, it returns to the question of whether family mediation has become an apparatus of family justice. Second, the chapter considers some alternative ways to understand contemporary mediator practice. Finally, it calls for further research into family mediation and other procedures in the post-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 landscape.
Chapter 4 shifts focus to the contemporary family justice system after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). It first argues that a new type of family mediator – the flexible mediator – has emerged in light of two factors caused by LASPO: first, the withdrawal of legal support and, second, the subsequent diversification of mediation clientele. Section 2 considers the increasing demand after the LASPO reforms for mediators to become more flexible, but ultimately argues that this adaptability is not possible if the limited mediator archetype continues to underpin the dominant conceptualization of family mediation. A debate on whether mediators should be permitted to draft consent orders then reveals the stagnancy of the current discussions on mediation reform. However, evidence discussed in section 3 shows that mediators adopt a flexible archetype as they regularly go beyond their neutrality and provide more evaluative support. The chapter considers how mediator neutrality can be reimagined in order to openly recognize the flexible mediator type, before concluding that further research is needed to confirm these developments. Part II of the monograph is subsequently justified.
Chapter 6 builds on the previous chapter by considering the ability of the flexible mediator type to support family justice. Through an analysis of empirical data, it again shows that family mediators have expanded their role in response to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 reforms. The chapter begins by considering the interview data on mediators’ approaches to screening, arguing that recent reforms have not stopped cases involving domestic abuse from being mediated. Section 2 considers how regulatory bodies and their members perceive mediator neutrality, particularly when a case involves a difficult party dynamic. The empirical data uncovers a dominant view among mediators that they are permitted, if not required, to respond to power imbalances, even if they see their neutrality as unconditional. The final section relates these practices to the ability of flexible mediators to support family justiceand reveals a general view throughout the mediator sample that mediation should ensure settlement of a certain quality. This section builds on prior literature around the use of legal norms in family mediation and argues that mediators now mediate in the shadow of the law. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of flexible mediators’ often quasi-legal role.
