Over the past twenty years, many jurisdictions have adopted same-sex marriage through courts or legislative reforms. The dominant description of this transformation is a universalist one: scholars and human rights activists argue that there is a global trend of legal systems converging towards marriage equality.
Using examples from Europe and the US, this presentation by Ivana Isailovic (Harvard University, Center for European Studies) will evaluate the conceptual and the practical shortcomings of this universalist narrative: on the conceptual level, the description of marriage equality as a universal norm does not account for the different legal arguments made in support of same-sex marriage and the cultural and social differences that drive legal change, while on the practical one it may obscure how discriminations are constituted across jurisdictions.
Speaker: Ivana Isailovic, Visiting Researcher, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Sponsor: RCC; Harvard European Law Association; Jean Monnet ad personam Chair in EU Law and Government