Double surnames are still far from the norm in the Netherlands

Dr Lorena Sosa advises Tweede Kamer committee about the WIGG

On 8 April 2026, Dr Lorena Sosa participated as an academic expert in the roundtable organised by the Standing Committee on Justice and Security of the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer), on double surnames and their effects on women. Drawing on international human rights law — in particular CEDAW, the ECHR, and the CRC — her intervention examined the extent to which the 2024 Wet Introductie Gecombineerde Geslachtsnaam (WIGG) meets the standard of substantive and transformative equality.

Her intervention engaged the question of whether the Wet Introductie Gecombineerde Geslachtsnaam (WIGG) satisfies the obligations incumbent on the Netherlands under international human rights law. While the WIGG has broadened parental choice in naming children, her contribution argued that the legislation remains structured around a conception of formal equality that falls short of the substantive and transformative equality standard required by Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

International human rights demand more than just equal options on paper. The question is not only whether parents formally have the same choice, but also whether the law, in practice, actually contributes to substantive equality between parents. That is precisely where I see a problem.

Specific concerns addressed in the intervention included:

  1. The residual provision of art. 1:5 Civil Code which results in direct discrimination and operates continues to operate within a deeply entrenched patrilineal norm and has been identified as non-compliant with CEDAW since 2001.
  2. The right to a name under art. 8 ECHR, as developed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and its implications for mothers’ capacity to transmit their family name to their children.
  3. The absence of a dispute resolution mechanism, which forecloses judicial access for the parents (disproportionately mothers)  who most need it, in violation of arts. 6 and 13 ECHR and leading to indirect discrimination.

Recommendations

Lorena Sosa concluded her intervention with two concrete legislative recommendations: replacement of the current residual provision with a sex-neutral default (a combined name in alphabetical order in cases of parental disagreement), and the introduction of a dispute mechanism enabling judicial review by reference to the child’s best interests and the equality rights of both parents.

Naming law 'technical'? Not quite.

Naming law is frequently characterised as a technical or peripheral area of family law. With thi contribution, Lorena Sosa placed it within the broader framework of structural inequality, demonstrating that the seemingly gender neutral rules governing family name attribution both reflect and reproduce gendered hierarchies in family decision-making, a concern that maps directly onto the most recent CEDAW Concluding Observations on the Netherlands (2026).

Lorena Sosa is is an associate professor of human rights at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM). She is also a member of the Family Law Research Group (Utrecht Centre for European Research into Family Law) and co-founder and coordinator of the Research Platform Equality Legal Studies (EQUALS) at the School of Law. Furthermore she is a member of the core team of the (In)equality Platform at Institutions for Open Societies.