International Domestic Partnerships
Eleven countries grant same-sex partners the right to assume a range of important rights, protections and obligations. They are Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (except for Scotland).
For example, in France, registered same-sex (and opposite-sex) couples can be joined in a civil “solidarity pact” that grants them the right to file joint tax returns, extend their social security coverage to each other and receive the same health, employment and welfare benefits as legal spouses. It also commits the couple to assume joint responsibility for household debts.
In Hungary, same-sex couples are covered by the nation's common law marriage laws, which carry some of the same rights of marriage, such as inheritance rights. Same-sex couples cannot enter into formal, civil marriages.
In Germany, registered same-sex couples receive the same inheritance and insurance rights as married opposite-sex couples. Registered partners also assume the responsibility to support each other financially in times of need. Citizenship is also conveyed to a non-citizen if he or she is registering a partnership with a German. But, contrary to some news reports, Germany does not have equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. The law, for example, does not extend to same-sex couples the tax and welfare benefits married opposite-sex couples receive. It also fails to grant same-sex couples the right to adopt children.
In the United Kingdom (except for Scotland), same-sex couples can register as civil partners. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, registered partners assume many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Some of these include: parental responsibility for children of the relationship, the right to adopt partner’s child or to petition to jointly adopt a non-related child, equal treatment as spouses in the laws surrounding wills and administration of estates and the right to sue for the wrongful death of a civil partner.
In Israel, the Attorney General stated that he would not appeal a district court’s November 2004 ruling that extended the common law spousal rights and responsibilities of inheritance, taxation and property to same-sex couples.