Cohabitation And Intestate Succession: A Human Rights Perspective

ABSTRACT

General Comment 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights asks states

to recognize and protect all families but leaves how to do this to state discretion. It is silent

on whether all families must be protected equally in a II circumstances. 0 ften, stales make

normative distinction between unmarried cohabitants and married s pauses s uch that

cohabitants are normally not given the quality of rights and protections guaranteed to married

spouses (Barlow et al, 2005). Whereas some researchers found that this situation

creates disadvantages for cohabitants and argued for equal treatment of cohabitants and

married spouses in all matters of concern to the family, others would like to preserve the

usual strict distinctions between them. My thesis uses Uganda's intestate succession law as

primary data to take a mid-way position in this debate. It proposes a context specific

approach to assessing issues of interest to the family taking into consideration the human

rights implications so as to determine how appropriate it is to distinguish between cohabitants

and married spouses. This s uggests that human rights concerns should normally d etermine the essence of differential treatment to avoid discrimination against cohabitants.