The Legal Status of Intersex Persons

This book provides a basis for discussion regarding all legal aspects concerning persons born with sex characteristics that do not belong strictly to male or female categories, or that belong to both at the same time. It contains contributions from medical, psychological and theological perspectives, as well as national legal perspectives from Germany, Australia, India, the Netherlands, Columbia, Sweden, France and the USA. It explores international human rights aspects of intersex legal recognition and also features chapters on private international law and legal history.

Dr Jens M. Scherpe, M.A. (Cantab), MJur (Oxon) is a Senior University Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge and a Lecturer and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College/ University of Hong Kong. He also is an Academic Door Tenant at the Barristers’ chambers Queen Elizabeth Building (QEB) in London. He is the Honorary Professor at the University of Aalborg and Cheng Yu Tung Visiting Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong.In Cambridge Jens teaches comparative law and family law - and comparative family law. Before taking up his position in Cambridge, he was a Research Fellow and Head of the Department for the Law of the Nordic Countries at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. He has held visiting positions at a number of institutions, including the Australian National University/Canberra, the University of Sydney, the University of Auckland/New Zealand and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona/Spain. In addition he has lectured on a variety of subjects in numerous countries around the world, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Singapore, Mauritius and the People’s Republic of China. Jens has published widely on a variety of topics. His major publications include several comparative family law studies. His PhD thesis on the out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes (2002) was awarded two prizes, the DIS-Förderpreis 2003/2004 by the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS) and the Otto-Hahn-Medal of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science for outstanding research achievements of young researchers (2002).He is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law/Académie internationale de droit compare, an Associate Fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and a member of the Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung für Familienrecht e.V and of the international board of the ＂Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht＂ (FamRZ).