Enforcing the Child's Right to Know Her Origins: Contrasting Approaches Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights

The justification of the child's right to know her origins andthe fundamental interests underlying it have attracted a lotof attention in recent years. This article goes one step furtherand assesses that right's enforcement in practice together withits guiding principles. It starts by restating what the rightconsists in and what interests it protects according to differentinternational human rights instruments. It then reveals theconflicts of rights that lie at the heart of the implementationof the right to know and explain its complexity. After consideringthe competing interests present, the article argues that noneof these interests and rights should be regarded as absoluteand suggests ways in which they can be balanced against eachother. The recent evolution in the European Court of Human Rights(ECtHR) case law with its more nuanced balancing of the competingrights is contrasted with the Convention on the Rights of theChild (CRC)'s focus on the child's paramount interest. The articleargues that these different approaches are reflected in nationallegal orders in Europe. By tracing the origins of this divergenceback to those conflicting international legal paradigms andby proposing abstract adjudication principles to guide the concretebalancing of competing rights, the article hopes to contributeto a better understanding and ultimate reconciliation of thechild's multiple identities – social and biological.